WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 


BY 


CLAYTON  SEDGWICK  COOPER 

Author  of  "College  Men  and  the  Bible' * 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1912 


c  fe 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Published,  October,  1912 


•      •       e*        c    e 


The  Chapel  at  West  Point  as  seen  from  an  Entrance  to 
the  Area  of  the  Cadet  Barracks 


WITH    GRATEFUL   REMEMBRANCE 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED  TO  MY 

COLLEGE    TEACHER  AND  FRIEND 

E.  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     General    Characteristics 8 

II     Education  a  la  Carte 51 

III     The    College    Campus 93 

^/^IV    .Reasons  for  Going  to  College "~~.      \     ~      T  135 

Jr  V     The   College   Man  and  the  World      .      .173 

Index 203 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


t     The  Chapel  at  West  Point  as  seen  from  an  Entrance  to  the 

Area  of  the  Cadet  Barracks Frontispiece 

PAGE 

u    Old  South  Middle,  Yale  University 9 

j   A  Protest  against  Prosiness 21 

.    University  Hall,  University  of  Michigan 36 

The  Serpentine  Dance  after  a  Football  Game 44 

Johnston  Gate  from  the  Yard,  Harvard  University     ...  53 

The  Library,  Columbia  University 67 

A  Popular  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  his  Crowded  Lecture 

Room 81 

Student  Waiters  in  the  Dining-Hall  of  an  American  College  96 

Amateur  College  Theatricals 113 

The  Main  Hall,  University  of  Wisconsin 123 

Blair  Arch,  Princeton  University 141 

Editors  of  the  Harvard  Lampoon  making  up  the  "Dummy" 

of  a  Number 155 

The  Library  and  the  Thomas  Jefferson  Statue,  University  of 

Virginia 166 

Harper  Memorial  Building  and  the  Law  Building,  University 

of  Chicago 179 

The  Arch  between  the  Dormitory  Quadrangle  and  the  Tri- 
angle, University  of  Pennsylvania 193 


PREFACE 

The  characteristics  of  a  college  course  de- 
manded by  our  American  undergraduates  is 
determined  by  two  things ;  first,  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  man  who  is  to  be  educated,  and  sec- 
ond, by  the  kind  of  world  in  which  the  man  is 
to  live  and  work.  Without  these  two  factors 
vividly  and  practically  in  mind,  all  plans  for 
courses  of  study,  recreation,  teaching,  or 
methods  of  social  and  religious  betterment  are 
theoretical  and  uncertain. 

Aften  ten  years  of  travel  among  American 
college  men,  studying  educational  tendencies  in 
not  less  than  seven  hundred  diverse  institutions 
in  various  parts  of  the  United  States  and  Can- 
ada, it  is  my  deep  conviction  that  the  chief  need 
of  our  North  American  Educational  system  is 
to  focus  attention  upon  the  individual  student 
rather  than  upon  his  environment,  either  in 
the  curriculum  or  in  the  college  buildings. 

A  few  great  teachers  in  every  worthy  North 
American  institution  who  know  and  love  the 
boys,  have  always  been  and  doubtless  will  con- 

xi 


PREFACE 

tinue  to  be  the  secret  of  the  power  of  our 
schools  and  colleges.  There  are  indications 
that  our  present  educational  system  involving 
vast  endowments  will  be  increasingly  directed 
to  the  end  of  engaging  as  teachers  the  greatest 
men  of  the  time,  men  of  great  heart  as  well  as 
of  great  brain  who  will  live  with  students, 
truly  caring  for  them  as  well  as  teaching  them. 
We  shall  thus  come  nearer  to  solving  the  prob- 
lem of  preparing  young  men  for  leadership 
and  useful  citizenship. 

That  this  is  the  sensible  and  general  demand 
of  graduates  is  easily  discovered  by  asking  any 
college  alumnus  to  state  the  strongest  and 
most  abiding  impression  left  by  his  college 
training.  Of  one  hundred  graduates  whom  I 
asked  the  concrete  question,  "What  do  you 
consider  to  be  the  most  valuable  thing  in  your 
college  course?" — eighty-six  said,  substan- 
tially: "Personal  contact  with  a  great  teacher." 
Clayton  Sedgwick  Cooper. 

March  12th,  1912. 


Xll 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 


Colleges,  in  like  manner,  have  their  indispensable 
office, — to  teach  elements.  But  they  can  only  highly 
serve  us  when  they  aim  not  to  drill,  but  to  create; 
when  they  gather  from  far  every  ray  of  various 
genius  to  their  hospitable  halls,  and  by  the  concen- 
trated fires,  set  the  hearts  of  their  youth  on  flame. 
Thought  and  knowledge  are  natures  in  which  ap- 
paratus and  pretension  avail  nothing.  Gowns  and 
pecuniary  foundations,  though  of  towns  of  gold, 
can  never  countervail  the  least  sentence  or  syllable 
of  wit.  Forget  this,  and  our  American  colleges  will 
recede  in  their  public  importance,  whilst  they  grow 
richer  every  year. 

Emeeson. 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

THE  American  college  was  recently  de- 
fined by  one  of  our  public  men  as  a 
"place  where  an  extra  clever  boy  may  go  and  L^ 
still  amount  to  something/' 

This  is  indeed  faint  praise  both  for  our  in- 
stitutions of  higher  learning  and  for  our  under- 
graduates; but  judging  from  certain  pres- 
entations of  student  life,  we  may  infer  that  it 
represents  a  sentiment  more  or  less  common 
and  wide-spread.  Our  institutions  are  crit- 
icized for  their  tendency  toward  practical  and 
progressive  education;  for  the  views  of  their 
professors;  for  their  success  in  securing  gifts 
of  wealth,  which  some  people  think  ought  to  go 
in  other  directions ;  and  for  the  lack  of  serious- 
ness or  the  dissipation  of  the  students  them- 
selves. Even  with  many  persons  who  have  not 
developed  any  definite  or  extreme   opinions 

3 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

concerning  American  undergraduate  life,  the 
college  is  often  viewed  in  the  light  in  which 
Matthew  Arnold  said  certain  people  regarded 
Oxford: 

Beautiful  city!  so  venerable,  so  lovely,  so  unravaged 
by  the  fierce  intellectual  life  of  our  century,  so  serene! 
There  are  our  young  barbarians,  all  at  play! 

Indeed,  to  people  of  the  outside  world,  the 
American  undergraduate  presents  an  enigma. 
He  appears  to  be  not  exactly  a  boy,  certainly 
not  a  man,  an  interesting  species,  a  kind  of 
"Exhibit  X,"  permitted  because  he  is  custom- 
ary; as  Carlyle  might  say,  a  creature  "run  by 
galvanism  and  possessed  by  the  devil." 

The  mystifying  part  of  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  college  man  seems  determined  to  keep 
up  this  illusion  of  his  partial  or  total  depravity. 
He  reveals  no  unchastened  eagerness  to  be 
thought  good.  Indeed,  he  usually  "plays  up" 
his  desperate  wickedness.  He  revels  in  his  un- 
mitigated lawlessness,  he  basks  in  the  glory  of 
fooling  folks.  As  Owen  Johnson  describes 
Dink  Stover,  he  seems  to  possess  a  "diabolical 
imagination."  He  chuckles  exuberantly  as 
he  reads  in  the  papers  of  his  picturesque  public 

4 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

appearances:  of  the  janitor's  cow  hoisted  into 
the  chapel  belfry;  of  the  statue  of  the  sedate 
founder  of  the  college  painted  red  on  the 
campus;  of  the  good  townspeople  selecting 
their  gates  from  a  pile  of  property  erected  on 
the  college  green;  or  as  in  graphic  cartoons  he 
sees  himself  returning  from  foot-ball  victories, 
accompanied  by  a  few  hundred  other  young 
hooligans,  marching  wildly  through  the  streets 
and  cars  to  the  martial  strain, 

There  '11  be  a  hot  time  in  the  old  town  to-night ! 

In  other  words,  the  American  student  is 
partly  responsible  for  the  attitude  of  town  to- 
ward gown.  He  endeavors  in  every  possible 
way  to  conceal  his  real  identity.  He  positively 
refuses  to  be  accurately  photographed  or  to  re- 
veal real  seriousness  about  anything.  He  is 
the  last  person  to  be  held  up  and  examined  as 
to  his  interior  moral  decorations.  He  would 
appear  to  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  but 
to  be  drifting  along  upon  a  glorious  tide  of  in- 
dolence or  exuberant  play.  He  would  make 
you  believe  that  to  him  life  is  just  a  great  frolic, 
a  long,  huge  joke,  an  unconditioned  holiday. 

5 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

The  wild  young  heart  of  him  enjoys  the  shock, 
the  offense,  the  startled  pang,  which  his  rest- 
less escapades  engender  in  the  stunned  and  un- 
sympathetic multitude. 

This  perversity  of  the  American  undergrad- 
uate is  as  fascinating  to  the  student  of  his  real 
character  as  it  is  baffling  to  a  chance  beholder, 
for  the  American  collegian  is  not  the  most  ob- 
vious thing  in  the  world.  He  is  not  discovered 
by  a  superficial  glance,  and  surely  not  by  the 
sweeping  accusations  of  uninformed  theoretical 
critics  who  have  never  lived  on  a  college 
campus,  but  have  gained  their  information  in 
second-hand  fashion  from  question-naires  or 
from  newspaper-accounts  of  the  youthful  es- 
capades of  students. 

We  must  find  out  what  the  undergraduate 
really  means  by  his  whimsicalities  and  pictur- 
esque attitudinizing.  We  must  find  out 
what  he  is  thinking  about,  what  he  reads,  what 
he  admires.  He  seems  to  live  in  two  distinct 
worlds,  and  his  inner  life  is  securely  shut  off 
from  his  outer  life.  If  we  would  learn  the  col- 
lege student,  we  must  catch  him  off  guard, 
away  from  the  "fellows,"  with  his  intimate 
friend,  in  the  chapter-house,  or  in  his  own  quiet 

6 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

room,  where  he  has  no  reputation  for  devil- 
ment to  live  up  to.  For  college  life  is  not 
epitomized  in  a  story  of  athletic  records  or  cur- 
riculum catalogues.  The  actual  student  is  not 
read  up  in  a  Baedeker.  His  spirit  is  caught 
by  hints  and  flashes ;  it  is  felt  as  an  inspiration, 
a  commingled  and  mystic  intimacy  of  work 
and  play,  not  fixed,  but  passing  quickly 
through  hours  unsaddened  by  the  cares  and 
burdens  of  the  world — 

No  fears  to  beat  away — no  strife  to  heal, 
The  past  unsigned  for,  and  the  future 
sure. 

It  is  with  such  sympathetic  imagination  that 
the  most  profitable  approach  can  be  made  to 
the  American  undergraduate.  To  see  him  as 
he  really  is,  one  needs  to  follow  him  into  his 
laboratory  or  lecture-room,  where  he  engages 
with  genuine  enthusiasm  in  those  labors 
through  which  he  expresses  his  temperament, 
his  inmost  ideals,  his  life's  choice.  Indeed,  to  ^ 
one  who  knows  that  to  sympathize  is  to  learn,t^ 
the  soul  windows  of  this  inarticulate,  immature, 
and  intangible  personality  will  sometimes 
be  flung  wide.     On  some  long,  vague  walk 

7 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

at  night  beneath  the  stars,  when  the  great  deeps 
of  his  life's  loyalties  are  suddenly  broken  up, 
one  will  discover  the  motive  of  the  undergrad- 
uate, and  below  specious  attempts  at  conceal- 
ment, the  self-absorbed,  graceful,  winsome 
spirit.  Here  one  is  held  by  the  subtle  charm  of 
youth  lost  in  a  sense  of  its  own  significance, 
moving  about  in  a  mysterious  paradise  all  his 
own,  "full  of  dumb  emotion,  undefined  long- 
ing, and  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  romantic  pos- 
sibilities of  life." 

In  this  portrait  one  sees  the  real  drift  of 
American  undergraduate  life — the  life  that  en- 
gaged last  year  in  North  American  institutions 
of  higher  learning  349,566  young  men,  among 
whom  were  many  of  America's  choicest  sons. 
Thousands  of  American  and  Canadian  fathers 
and  mothers,  some  for  reasons  of  culture, 
others  for  social  prestige,  still  others  for  rev- 
enue only,  are  ambitious  to  keep  these  students 
in  the  college  world.  Many  of  these  parents, 
whose  hard-working  lives  have  always  spelled 
duty,  choose  each  year  to  beat  their  way 
against  rigid  economy,  penury,  and  bitter  loss, 
that  their  sons  may  possess  what  they  them- 
selves never  had,  a  college  education.    And 

8 


Old  South  Middle,  Yale  University 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

when  we  have  found,  below  all  his  boyish 
pranks,  dissimulations,  and  masqueradings, 
the  true  undergraduate,  we  may  also  discern 
some  of  the  pervasive  influences  which  are  to- 
day shaping  life  upon  this  Western  Continent ; 
for  the  undergraduate  is  a  true  glass  to  give 
back  to  the  nation  its  own  image. 

HIS  PASSION  FOR  REALITY 

Early  in  this  search  for  the  predominant 
traits  of  the  college  man  one  is  sure  to  And  a 
passion  for  reality.  "We  stand  for  him  be- 
cause he  is  the  real  thing,"  is  the  answer  which 
I  received  from  a  student  at  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  when  I  asked  the  reason  for  the 
amazing  popularity  of  a  certain  undergrad- 
uate. 

The  American  college  man  worships  at  the 
shrine  of  reality.  He  likes  elemental  things. 
Titles,  conventions,  ceremonies,  creeds — all 
these  for  him  are  forms  of  things  merely.  To 
him 

The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man  's  the  gowd  for  a'  that. 

The  strain  of  the  real,  like  the  red  stripe  in 
11 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

the  official  English  cordage,  runs  through  the 
student's  entire  existence.  His  sense  of 
"squareness"  is  highly  developed.  To  be  sure, 
in  the  classroom  he  often  tries  to  conceal  the 
weakness  of  his  defenses  with  extraordinary 
genius  by  "bluffing,"  but  this  attitude  is  as 
much  for  the  sake  of  art  as  for  dishonesty. 
The  hypocrite  is  an  unutterable  abomination  in 
his  eyes.  He  would  almost  prefer  outright 
criminality  to  pious  affectation.  Sham  heroics 
and  mock  sublimity  are  specially  odious  to  him. 
The  undergraduate  is  still  sufficiently  unso- 
phisticated to  believe  that  things  should  be 
what  they  seem  to  be:  at  least  his  entire  incli- 
nation and  desire  is  to  see  men  and  things  as 
they  are. 

This  passion  for  reality  is  revealed  in  the 
student's  love  of  brevity  and  directness.  He 
abhors  vagueness  and  long-windedness.  His 
speeches  do  not  begin  with  description  of  nat- 
ural scenery;  he  plunges  at  once  into  his  sub- 
ject. 

A  story  is  told  at  New  Haven  concerning  a 
preacher  who,  shortly  before  he  was  to  address 
the  students  in  the  chapel,  asked  the  president 
of  the  university  whether  the  time  for  his  ad- 

12 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

dress  would  be  limited.  The  president  replied, 
"Oh,  no;  speak  as  long  as  you  like,  but  there  is 
a  tradition  here  at  Yale  chapel  that  no  souls 
are  saved  after  twenty  minutes." 

The  preacher  who  holds  his  sermon  in  an 
hour's  grip  rarely  holds  students.  The  college 
man  is  a  keen  discerner  between  rhetoric  and 
ideas.  No  decisions  are  more  prompt  or  more 
generally  correct  than  his.  iHe  knows  imme- 
diately what  he  likes.  You  catch  him  or  you 
lose  him  quickly;  he  never  dangles  on  the  hook.J 
The  American  student  is  peculiarly  inclined  to 
follow  living  lines.  He  is  not  afraid  of  life. 
While  usually  he  is  free  from  affectation,  he 
is  nevertheless  impelled  by  the  urgent  en- 
thusiasm of  youth,  and  demands  immediate  ful- 
filment of  his  dreams.  His  life  is  not  "pitched 
to  some  far-off  note,"  but  is  based  upon  the 
everlasting  now.  He  inhabits  a  miniature 
world,  in  which  he  helps  to  form  a  public  opin- 
ion, which,  though  circumscribed,  is  impartial 
and  sane.  No  justice  is  more  equal  than  that 
meted  out  by  undergraduates  at  those  institu- 
tions where  a  student  committee  has  charge  of 
discipline  and  honor-systems.  A  child  of 
reality  and  modernity,  he  is  economical  of  his 

13 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

praise,  trenchant  and  often  remorseless  in  his 
criticisms  and  censures,  for  as  yet  he  has  not 
learned  to  be  insincere  and  socially  diplomatic. 
This  penchant  for  reality  emerges  in  the  plat- 
form of  a  successful  college  athlete  in  a  New 
England  institution  who,  when  he  was  elected 
to  leadership  in  one  of  the  college  organiza- 
tions, called  together  his  men  and  gave  them 
two  stern  rules : 

First,  stop  apologizing!     Second,  do  a  lot 
of  work,  and  don't  talk  much  about  it ! 


HIS  NATURALNESS 

The  undergraduate's  worship  of  reality  is 
also  shown  in  his  admiration  of  naturalness. 
The  modern  student  has  relegated  into  the 
background  the  stilted  elocutionary  and  ora- 
torical contests  of  forty  years  ago  because  those 
exercises  were  unnatural.  The  chair  of  elocu- 
tion in  an  American  college  of  to-day  is  a  de- 
clining institution.  Last  year  in  one  of  our 
universities  of  one  thousand  students  the  course 
in  oratory  was  regularly  attended  by  three. 

The  instructor  in  rhetorical  exercises  in  a 
college  to-day  usually  sympathizes  with  the  re- 

14 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

marks  of  one  Professor  Washington  Value, 
the  French  teacher  of  dancing  at  New  Haven 
when  that  polite  accomplishment  was  a  part  of 
college  education.  At  one  time  when  he  was 
unusually  ill-treated  by  his  exuberant  pupils, 
he  exclaimed  in  a  frenzy  of  Gallic  fervor: 
"Gentlemen,  if  ze  Lord  vere  to  come  down 
from  heaven,  and  say,  'Mr.  Washington  Value, 
vill  you  be  dancing  mast'  at  Yale  College,  or 
vill  you  be  etairnally  dam'?'  I  would  say  to 
Him — '  'Sieur,  eef  eet  ees  all  ze  sem  to  you,  I 
vill  be  etairnally  dam'.'  "  The  weekly  lecture 
in  oratory  usually  furnishes  an  excellent  chance 
for  relaxation  and  horseplay.  A  college  man 
said  to  me  recently :  "I  would  n't  cut  that  hour 
for  anything.     It  is  as  good  as  a  circus." 

The  student  prefers  the  language  of  natural- 
ness. He  is  keen  for  scientific  and  athletic  ex- 
ercises, in  part  at  least  because  they  are  actual 
and  direct  approaches  to  reality.  His  college 
slang,  while  often  superabundant  and  absurd, 
is  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  directness,  and  vivid 
expression.  The  perfect  Elizabethan  phrases 
of  the  accomplished  rhetorician  are  listened  to 
with  enduring  respect,  but  the  stumbling  and 
broken  sentences  of  the  college  athlete  in  a 

15 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

student  mass-meeting  set  a  college  audience 
wild  with  enthusiasm  and  applause. 

Henry  Drummond  was  perhaps  the  most 
truly  popular  speaker  to  students  of  the  last 
generation.  A  chief  reason  for  this  popular- 
ity consisted  in  his  perfect  naturalness,  his  ab- 
solute freedom  from  pose  and  affectation.  I 
listened  to  one  of  his  first  addresses  in  this 
country,  when  he  spoke  to  Harvard  students 
in  Appleton  Chapel  in  1893.  His  general 
subject  was  "Evolution."  The  hall  was 
packed  with  Harvard  undergraduates.  Colle- 
gians had  come  also  from  other  New  England 
institutions  to  see  and  to  hear  the  man  who 
had  won  the  loving  homage  of  the  students  of 
two  continents.  As  he  rose  to  speak,  the  au- 
dience sat  in  almost  breathless  stillness.  Men 
were  wondering  what  important  scientific  word 
would  first  fall  from  the  lips  of  this  renowned 
Glasgow  professor.  He  stood  for  a  moment 
with  one  hand  in  his  pocket,  then  leaned  upon 
the  desk,  and,  with  that  fine,  contagious  smile 
which  so  often  lighted  his  face,  he  looked  about 
at  the  windows,  and  drawled  out  in  his  quaint 
Scotch,  "Isn't  it  rather  hot  here?"  The  col- 
legians broke  into  an  applause  that  lasted  for 

16 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

minutes,  then  stopped,  began  again,  and  fairly 
shook  the  chapel.  It  was  applause  for  the 
natural  man.  By  the  telegraphy  of  human- 
ness  he  had  established  his  kinship  with  them. 
Thereafter  he  was  like  one  of  them;  and  prob- 
ably no  man  has  ever  received  more  complete 
loyalty  from  American  undergraduates. 


HIS  SENSE  OF  HUMOR 

Furthermore,  the  college  man's  love  of  re- 
ality is  kept  in  balance  by  his  humorous  tend- 
encies. His  keen  humor  is  part  of  him.  It 
rises  from  him  spontaneously  on  all  occasions 
in  a  kind  of  genial  effervescence.  He  seems 
to  have  an  inherent  antagonism  to  dolefulness 
and  long-facedness.  His  life  is  always  break- 
ing into  a  laugh.  He  is  looking  for  the  breezi- 
ness,  the  delight,  the  wild  joy  of  living.  Every 
phenomenon  moves  him  to  a  smiling  mood. 
Recently  I  rode  in  a  trolley-car  with  some  col- 
legians, and  could  not  but  notice  how  every 
object  in  the  country-side,  every  vehicle,  every 
group  of  men  and  women,  would  draw  from 
them  some  humorous  sally,  while  the  other  pas- 
sengers looked  on  in  good-natured,  sophisti- 

17 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

cated  amusement  or  contempt.  The  whole 
student  mood  is  as  light  and  warm  and  invig- 
orating as  summer  sunshine.  He  lives  in  a  pe- 
riod when 

'tis  bliss  to  be  alive. 

Rarely  does  one  find  revengefulness  or  sul- 
len hatred  in  the  American  undergraduate. 
When  a  man  with  these  traits  is  discovered  in 
college,  it  is  usually  a  sign  that  he  does  not 
belong  with  collegians.  His  place  is  elsewhere, 
and  he  is  usually  shown  the  way  thither  by  both 
professors  and  students.  Heinrich  Heine  said 
he  forgave  his  enemies,  but  not  until  they  were 
dead.  The  student  forgives  and  usually  for- 
gets the  next  day.  The  sense  of  humor  is  a 
real  influence  toward  this  attitude  of  mind,  for 
the  student  blots  out  his  resentment  by  making 
either  himself  or  his  antagonist  appear  ridicu- 
lous. 

He  has  acquired  the  fine  art  of  laughing  both 
at  himself  and  with  himself.  A  story  is  told 
of  a  cadet  at  a  military  school  who  committed 
some  more  or  less  trivial  offense  which  reacted 
upon  a  number  of  his  classmates  to  the  extent 

18 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

that,  because  of  it,  several  cadets  were  forced 
to  perform  disciplinary  sentinel  duty.  It  was 
decided  that  the  young  offender  should  be 
forthwith  taken  out  on  the  campus,  and  ordered 
to  kiss  all  the  trees,  posts,  telegraph-poles,  and, 
in  fact,  every  free  object  on  the  parade-ground. 
The  humorous  spectacle  presented  was  suffi- 
cient compensation  to  sweep  quite  out  of  the 
hearts  of  his  classmates  any  possible  ill  feeling. 
The  faculty  song,  the  refrain  of  which  is 


Where,  oh,  where  is  Professor  'r>*  ? 
Way  down  in  the  world  below, 

and  is  indulged  in  by  many  undergraduate 
students,  usually  covers  all  the  sins  and  foibles 
of  the  instructors.  One  or  two  rounds  of  this 
song,  with  the  distinguished  faculty  members 
as  audience,  is  often  found  sufficient  to  clear 
the  atmosphere  of  any  unpleasantness  existing 
between  professors  and  students. 

Not  long  ago,  in  an  institution  in  the  Mid- 
dle West,  this  common  tendency  to  wit  and 
humor  came  out  when  a  very  precise  professor 
lectured  vigorously  against  athletics,  showing 
their  deleterious  effect  upon  academic  exer- 

19 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

cises.  The  following  day  the  college  paper 
gave  on  the  front  page,  as  though  quoted  from 
the  professor's  remarks,  "Don't  let  your  stud- 
ies interfere  with  your  education." 

The  student's  humor  is  original  and  pointed. 
Not  long  ago  I  saw  a  very  dignified  youth 
solemnly  measuring  the  walks  around  Boston 
Common  with  a  codfish,  keeping  accurate  ac- 
count of  the  number  of  codfish  lengths  em- 
braced in  this  ancient  and  honorable  inclosure. 
His  labors  were  made  interesting  by  a  gallery 
of  collegians,  who  followed  him  with  explosions 
of  laughter  and  appropriate  remarks. 

Not  long  ago  in  a  large  university,  during 
an  exceedingly  long  and  prosy  sermon  of  the 
wearisome  type  which  seems  always  to  be  com- 
ing to  an  end  with  the  next  paragraph,  the 
students  exhibited  their  impatience  by  leaning 
their  heads  over  on  their  left  hands.  Just  as 
it  seemed  sure  that  the  near-sighted  preacher 
was  about  to  conclude,  he  took  a  long  breath 
and  said,  "Let  us  now  turn  to  the  other  side  of 
the  character  of  Saint  Paul,"  whereupon,  suit- 
ing the  action  to  the  word,  every  student  in  the 
chapel  shifted  his  position  so  as  to  rest  his  head 
wearily  upon  the  other  hand. 

20 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

RELIGION  AND  THE  COLLEGE  MAN 

I  have  often  been  asked  by  people  who  only 
see  the  student  in  such  playful  and  humorous 
moods,  "Is  the  American  college  man  really 
religious?"  The  answer  must  be  decidedly  in 
the  affirmative.  The  college  boy — with  the 
manner  of  young  men  somewhat  ashamed  of 
their  emotions — does  not  want  to  talk  much 
about  his  religion,  but  this  does  not  prove  that 
he  does  not  possess  the  feeling  or  the  founda- 
tion of  religion.  In  fact,  at  present  there  is 
a  deep  current  of  seriousness  and  religious 
feeling  running  through  the  college  life  of 
America.  The  honored  and  influential  stu- 
dents in  undergraduate  circles  are  taking  a 
stand  for  the  things  most  worth  while  in  aca- 
demic life. 

The  undergraduate's  religious  life  is  not 
usually  of  the  traditional  order;  in  fact  it  is 
more  often  unconventional,  unceremonious,  and 
expressed  in  terms  and  acts  germane  to  student 
environment.  College  men  do  not,  for  ex- 
ample, crowd  into  the  church  prayer-meetings 
in  the  local  college  town.  As  some  one  has 
expressed  it,  "You  cannot  swing  religion  into 

23 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

college  men,  prayer-meeting-end-to."  When 
the  student  applies  to  people  such  words  as 
"holy,"  "saintly,"  or  "pious,"  he  is  not  intend- 
ing to  be  complimentary.  Furthermore,  he 
does  not  frequent  meetings  "in  derogation  of 
strong  drink."  His  songs,  also,  are  not  usu- 
ally devotional  hymns,  and  his  conversation 
would  seldom  suggest  that  he  was  a  promoter 
of  benevolent  enterprises. 

Yet  the  undergraduate  is  truly  religious. 
Some  of  the  things  which  seem  at  first  sight 
quite  out  of  the  realm  of  the  religious  are  in- 
dications of  this  tendency  quite  as  much  as  com- 
pulsory attendance  upon  chapel  exercises. 
Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke  has  said  that  the  college 
man's  songs  and  yells  are  his  prayers.  He  is 
not  the  first  one  who  has  felt  this  in  listening 
to  Princeton  seniors  on  the  steps  of  Nassau 
Hall  singing  that  thrilling  hymn  of  loyalty, 
"Old  Nassau." 

I  have  stood  for  an  entire  evening  with 
crowds  of  students  about  a  piano  as  they  sang 
with  a  depth  of  feeling  more  readily  felt  than 
described.  As  a  rule  there  was  little  con- 
versing except  a  suggestion  of  a  popular  song, 
a  plantation  melody,  or  some  stirring  hymn. 

24 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

One  feels  at  such  times,  however,  that  the 
thoughts  of  the  men  are  not  as  idle  as  their 
actions  imply.  As  one  student  expressed  it  in 
a  college  fraternity  recently,  "When  we  sing 
like  that,  I  always  keep  up  a  lot  of  thinking." 

Moreover,  if  we  consider  the  college  com- 
munity from  a  strictly  conventional  or  religious 
point  of  view,  the  present-day  undergraduates 
do  not  suffer  either  in  comparison  with  college 
men  of  other  days,  or  with  other  sections  of 
modern  life.  The  reports  of  the  last  year  give 
sixty  out  of  every  one  hundred  undergraduates 
as  members  of  churches.  One  in  every  seven 
men  in  the  American  colleges  last  season  was 
in  voluntary  attendance  upon  the  Bible  classes 
in  connection  with  the  College  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association. 

The  religious  tendencies  of  the  American  un- 
dergraduates are  also  reflected  in  their  par- 
ticipation in  the  modern  missionary  crusades 
both  at  home  and  abroad.  Twenty-five  years 
ago  the  entire  gifts  of  North  American  institu- 
tions for  the  support  of  missions  in  foreign 
lands  was  less  than  $10,000.  Last  year  the 
students  and  alumni  of  Yale  University  alone 
gave  $15,000  for  the  support  of  the  Yale  Mis- 

25 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

sion  in  China,  while  $131,000  represented  the 
gifts  of  North  American  colleges  to  the  mis- 
sion cause  in  other  countries.  The  missionary 
interests  of  students  on  this  continent  are  fur- 
thermore revealed  in  the  fact  that  11,838  men 
were  studying  modern  missions  in  weekly  stu- 
dent mission  study  classes  during  the  college 
season  of  1909-10.  At  Washington  and  Lee 
University  there  were  more  college  men  study- 
ing missions  in  1910  than  were  doing  so  in  the 
whole  United  States  and  Canada  sixteen  years 
ago. 

During  the  last  ten  years  4338  college  gradu- 
ates have  gone  to  foreign  lands  from  North 
America  to  give  their  lives  in  unselfish  service 
to  people  less  fortunate  than  themselves.  Six 
hundred  of  these  sailed  in  1910  to  fill  positions 
in  foreign  mission  ports  in  the  Levant,  India, 
China,  Japan,  Korea,  Africa,  Australia,  and 
South  America. 


THE  BACCHIC  ELEMENT 

Furthermore,  the  standards  of  morals  and 
conduct  among  the  American  undergraduates 
are  perceptibly  higher  than  they  were  fifty 

26 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

years  ago.  There  is  a  very  real  tendency  in 
the  line  of  doing  away  with  such  celebrations 
as  have  been  connected  with  drinking  and  im- 
moralities. To  be  sure,  one  will  always  find 
students  who  are  often  worse  for  their  bacchic 
associations,  and  one  must  always  keep  in  mind 
that  the  college  is  on  earth  and  not  in  heaven; 
but  a  comparison  of  student  customs  to-day 
with  those  of  fifty  years  ago  gives  cause  for 
encouragement.  Even  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  we  find  conditions  that  did 
not  reflect  high  honor  upon  the  sobriety  of  stu- 
dents; for  example,  in  the  year  1814  we  find 
Washington  Irving  and  James  K.  Paulding 
depicting  the  usual  sights  about  college  inns 
in  the  poem  entitled  "The  Lay  of  the  Scottish 
Fiddle."     The  following  is  an  extract: 

Around  the  table's  verge  was  spread 
Full  many  a  wine-bewildered  head 
Of  student  learn'd,  from  Nassau  Hall, 
Who,  broken  from  scholastic  thrall, 
Had  set  him  down  to  drink  outright 
Through  all  the  livelong  merry  night, 
And  sing  as  loud  as  he  could  bawl; 
Such  is  the  custom  of   Nassau  Hall. 
No   Latin  now   or  heathen  Greek 
The   senior's   double  tongue   can  speak. 

n 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

Juniors   from  famed  Pierian  fount 

Had  drank   so   deep  they   scarce  could   count 

The  candles  on  the  reeling  table. 

While  emulous  freshmen,  hardly  able 

To  drink,  their  stomachs  were  so  full, 

Hiccuped,  and  took  another  pull, 

Right  glad  to  see  their  merry  host, 

Who  never  wine  or  wassail  crost; 

They  willed  him  join  the  merry  throng 

And  grace  their  revels  with  a  song. 

There  has  probably  never  been  a  time  in  our 
colleges  when  such  scenes  were  less  popular 
than  they  are  to-day.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  American  college  man  was  ever 
more  seriously  interested  in  the  moral,  social, 
and  religious  uplift  of  his  times.  One  of  his 
cardinal  ambitions  is  really  to  serve  his  genera- 
tion worthily  both  in  private  and  in  public.  In 
fact,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  serviceable- 
ness  is  to-day  the  watchword  of  American  col- 
lege religion.  This  religion  is  not  turned  so 
much  toward  the  individual  as  in  former  days. 
It  is  more  socialized  ethics.  The  undergradu- 
ate is  keenly  sensitive  to  the  calls  of  modern 
society.  Any  one  who  is  skeptical  on  this  point 
may  well  examine  the  biographies  in  social,  po- 
litical, and  religious  contemporaneous  history. 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

In  a  recent  editorial  in  one  of  our  weeklies  it 
was  humorously  stated  that  "Whenever  you  see 
an  enthusiastic  person  running  nowadays  to 
commit  arson  in  the  temple  of  privilege,  trace 
it  back,  and  ten  to  one  you  will  come  against  a 
college."  President  Taft  and  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  his  Cabinet  are  college-trained 
men.  The  reform  movements,  social,  political, 
economic,  and  religious,  not  only  in  the  West, 
but  also  in  the  Levant,  India,  and  the  Ear 
East,  are  being  led  very  largely  by  college 
graduates,  who  are  not  merely  reactionaries  in 
these  national  enterprises,  but  are  in  a  very 
true  sense  "trumpets  that  sing  to  battle"  in  a 
time  of  constructive  transformation  and  prog- 
ress. 


THE  PLAY  LIFE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  UNDER- 
GRADUATE 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  reasons  which  helps 
to  account  for  the  lack  of  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  outsiders  concerning  the  revival  in  col- 
lege seriousness  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
play  life  of  American  undergraduates  has  be- 
come a  prominent  factor  in  our  educational  in- 

29 


-7 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

stitutions.  Indeed,  there  is  a  general  impres- 
sion among  certain  college  teachers  and  among 
outside  spectators  of  college  life  that  students 
have  lost  their  heads  in  their  devotion  to  inter- 
collegiate athletics.  And  it  is  not  strange  that 
such  opinions  should  exist. 

A  dignified  father  visits  his  son  at  college. 
He  is  introduced  to  "the  fellows  in  the  house," 
and  at  once  is  appalled  by  the  awestruck  way 
with  which  his  boy  narrates,  in  such  technical 
terms  as  still  further  stagger  the  fond  parent, 
the  miraculous  methods  and  devices  practised 
by  a  crack  short-distance  runner  or  a  base-ball 
star  or  the  famous  tackle  of  the  year.  When 
in  an  impressive  silence  the  father  is  allowed 
the  unspeakable  honor  of  being  introduced  to 
the  captain  of  the  foot-ball  team,  the  autocrat 
of  the  undergraduate  world,  the  real  object 
of  college  education  becomes  increasingly  a 
tangle  in  the  father's  mind.  As  a  plain  busi- 
ness man  with  droll  humor  expressed  his  feel- 
ings recently,  after  escaping  from  a  dozen  or 
more  collegians  who  had  been  talking  athletics 
to  him,  "I  felt  like  a  merchant  marine  without 
ammunition,  being  fired  into  by  a  pirate  ship 
until  I  should  surrender." 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

Whatever  the  undergraduate  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  to-day  he  is  no  "absent-minded, 
spectacled,  slatternly,  owlish  don."  His  inter- 
est in  the  present-day  world,  and  especially  the 
athletic  world,  is  acute  and  general.  Whether 
he  lives  on  the  "Gold  Coast"  at  Harvard  or  in 
a  college  boarding-house  in  Montana,  in  his 
athletic  loyalties  he  belongs  to  the  same  fra- 
ternity. To  the  average  undergraduates,  ath- 
letics seem  often  to  have  the  sanctity  of  an  in- 
stitution. Artemus  Ward  said  concerning  the 
Civil  War  that  he  would  willingly  sacrifice  all 
his  wife's  relatives  for  the  sake  of  the  cause. 
Some  such  feeling  seems  to  dominate  the  Amer- 
ican collegian. 

\ 

CONCERNING  ATHLETICS 

Because  of  such  athletic  tendencies,  the  col- 
lege student  has  been  the  recipient  of  the  dis- 
approbation of  a  certain  type  of  onlookers  in 
general,  and  of  many  college  faculties  in  par- 
ticular. 

President  Lowell  of  Harvard,  in  advocating 
competitive  scholarship,  in  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
address  at  Columbia  University,  said,  "By  free 

31. 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

use  of  competition,  athletics  has  beaten  scholar- 
ship out  of  sight  in  the  estimation  of  the  com- 
munity at  large,  and  in  the  regard  of  the  stu- 
dent bodies."  Woodrow  Wilson  pays  his  re- 
spects to  student  athleticism  by  sententiously 
remarking,  "So  far  as  colleges  go,  the  side- 
shows have  swallowed  up  the  circus,  and  we  in 
the  main  tent  do  not  know  what  is  going  on." 
Professor  Edwin  E.  (gilosson,  who  spent 
somewhat  over  a  year  traveling  among  four- 
teen of  the  large  universities,  utters  a  Jereiaiad. 
on  college  athletics.  He  found  "that  athletic 
contests  do  not  promote  friendly  feeling  and 
mutual  respect  between  the  colleges,  but  quite 
the  contrary;  that  they  attract  an  undesirable 
set  of  students;  that  they  lower  the  standard  of 
honor  and  honesty;  that  they  corrupt  faculties 
and  officials ;  that  they  cultivate  the  mob  mind ; 
that  they  divert  the  attention  of  the  students 
from  their  proper  work;  and  pervert  the  ends 
of  education."  And  all  these  cumulative  ca- 
lamities arrive,  according  to  Professor  Slosson, 
because  of  the  grand  stand,  because  people  are 
watching  foot-ball  games  and  competitive  ath- 
letics. The  professor  would  have  no  objection 
to  a  few  athletes  playing  foot-ball  on  the  desert 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

of  Idaho  or  in  the  fastnesses  of  the  Maine 
woods,  provided  no  one  was  looking.  "If 
there  is  nobody  watching,  they  will  not  hurt 
themselves  much  and  others  not  at  all,"  he  con- 
cedes. 

Meanwhile,    regardless   of  their   doom, 
The  little  victims  play. 

In  fact,  such  argument  appeals  to  the  average 
collegian  with  about  the  same  degree  of  weight 
as  the  remark  of  the  Irishman  who  was  chased 
by  a  mad  bull.  The  Irishman  ran  until  out  of 
breath,  with  the  bull  directly  behind  him;  then 
a  sudden  thought  struck  him,  and  he  said  to 
himself:  "What  a  fool  I  am!  I  am  running 
the  same  way  this  bull  is  running.  I  would  be 
all  right  if  I  were  only  running  the  other  way." 
It  will  doubtless  be  conceded  by  fair-minded 
persons  generally  that  in  many  institutions  of 
North  America  athletics  are  being  over-empha- 
sized, even  as  in  some  institutions  practical  and 
scientific  education  is  emphasized  at  the  ex- 
pense of  liberal  training.  It  is  difficult,  how- 
ever, to  generalize  concerning  either  of  these 
subjects.     Opinion  and  judgment  vary  almost 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

as  widely  as  does  the  point  of  view  from  which 
persons  note  college  conditions.  A  keen  pro- 
fessor of  one  of  the  universities  where  ath- 
letics too  largely  usurped  the  time  and  atten- 
tion of  students,  justifiably  summed  up  the 
situation  by  saying: 

The  man  who  is  trying  to  acquire  intellectual  ex- 
perience is  regarded  as  abnormal  (a  "greasy  grind" 
is  the  elegant  phrase,  symptomatic  at  once  of  student 
vulgarity,  ignorance,  and  stupidity),  and  intellectual 
eminence  falls  under  suspicion  as  "bad  form."  The 
student  body  is  too  much  obsessed  of  the  "campus- 
celebrity"  type, — a  decent-enough  fellow,  as  a  rule,  but, 
equally  as  a  rule,  a  veritable  Goth.  That  any  group 
claiming  the  title  students  should  thus  minimize  in- 
tellectual superiority  indicates  an  extraordinary  condi- 
tion of  topsyturvydom. 


During  the  last  twelve  months,  however,  I 
have  talked  with  several  hundred  persons,  in- 
cluding college  presidents,  professors,  alumni, 
and  fathers  and  mothers  in  twenty-five  States 
and  provinces  of  North  America  in  relation  to 
this  question.  While  occasionally  a  college 
professor  as  well  as  parent  or  a  friend  of  a  par- 
ticular student  has  waxed  eloquent  in  dispraise 


University  Hall,  University  of  Michigan 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

of  athletics,  by  far  the  larger  majority  of  these 
representative  witnesses  have  said  that  in  their 
particular  region  athletic  exercises  among  stu- 
dents were  not  over-emphasized. 

Yet  it  is  evident  that  college  athletics  in 
America  to-day  are  too  generally  limited  to  a 
few  students  who  perform  for  the  benefit  of 
the  rest.  It  is  also  apparent  that  certain 
riotous  and  bacchanalian  exercises  which  attend 
base-ball  and  foot-ball  victories  have  been  very 
discouraging  features  to  those  who  are  inter- 
ested in  student  morality.  In  another  chapter 
I  shall  treat  at  some  length  of  these  and  other 
influences  which  are  directly  inimical  to  the 
making  of  such  leadership  as  the  nation  has  a 
right  to  demand  of  our  educated  men.  In  this 
connection,  however,  I  wish  to  throw  some 
light  upon  the  student  side  of  the  athletic 
problem,  a  point  of  view  too  often  overlooked 
by  writers  upon  this  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  it  needs  to  be  appreciated 
that  student  athletics  in  some  form  or  other 
have  absorbed  a  considerable  amount  of  atten- 
tion of  collegians  in  American  institutions  for 
over  half  a  century.  Fifty  years  ago,  even,  we 
find  foot-ball  a  fast  and  furious  conflict  be- 

37 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

tween  classes.  If  we  can  judge  by  ancient 
records,  these  conflicts  were  often  quite  as 
bloody  in  those  days  as  at  present.  An  old 
graduate  said  recently  that,  compared  with  the 
titanic  struggles  of  his  day,  modern  foot-ball 
is  only  a  wretched  sort  of  parlor  pastime.  In 
those  days  the  faculty  took  a  hand  in  the  battle, 
and  a  historical  account  of  a  New  England 
college  depicts  in  immortal  verse  the  story  of 
the  way  in  which  a  divinity  professor  charged 
physically  into  the  bloody  savagery  of  the 
foot-ball  struggle  of  the  class  of  '58. 

Poor  '58  had  scarce  got  well 

From  that  sad  punching  in  the  bel — 
Of  old  Prof.  Olmstead's  umberell. 

It  will  be  impossible  to  fully  represent 
the  values  of  athletics  as  a  deterrent  to  the  dis- 
solute wanderings  and  immoralities  common  in 
former  times.  Neither  can  one  dwell  upon  the 
real  apotheosis  of  good  health  and  robust 
strength  that  regular  physical  training  has 
brought  to  the  youth  of  the  country  through 
the  advent  of  college  gymnasiums  and  indoor 
and  outdoor  athletic  exercises.  Much  also 
\  38 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

might  be  said  in  favor  of  athletics,  especially 
foot-ball,  because  of  the  fact  that  such  exer- 
cises emphasize  discipline,  which,  outside  of 
West  Point  and  Annapolis,  is  lamentably  lack- 
ing in  this  country  both  in  the  school  and  in  the 
family.  While  there  is  much  need  to  engage 
a  larger  number  of  students  in  general  athletic 
exercises,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  even 
though  a  few  boys  play  at  foot-ball  or  base- 
ball, all  of  the  students  who  look  on  imbibe  the 
idea  that  it  is  only  the  man  who  trains  hard  who 
succeeds. 

There  is,  too,  a  feeling  among  those  who 
know  intimately  the  real  values  of  college  play 
life,  when  wholesale  denunciations  are  made  of 
undergraduate  athletics,  that  it  is  possible  for 
one  outside  of  college  walls  or  even  for  one  of 
the  faculty  to  produce  all  the  facts  with  accu- 
racy, and  yet  to  fail  in  catching  the  life  of  the 
undergraduate  at  play.  Inextricably  asso- 
ciated with  college  athletics  is  a  composite  and 
intangible  thing  known  as  "college  spirit."  It 
is  something  which  defies  analysis  and  exposi- 
tion, which,  when  taken  apart  and  classified,  is 
not ;  yet  it  makes  distinctive  the  life  and  atmos- 
phere of  every  great  seat  of  learning,  and  is 

39 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

closely  linked  not  only  with  classrooms,  but  also 
with  such  events  as  occur  on  the  great  athletic 
grand  stands,  upon  fields  of  physical  contest 
in  the  sight  of  the  college  colors,  where  episodes 
and  aims  are  mighty,  and  about  which  historical 
loyalties  cling  much  as  the  old  soldier's  memo- 
ries are  entwined  with  the  flag  he  has  cheered 
and  followed.  While  we  are  quoting  from  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  orators,  let  us  quote  from  another, 
a  contemporary  of  Longfellow,  Horace  Bush- 
nell,  whom  Henry  M.  Alden  has  called,  next 
to  Emerson,  the  most  original  American 
thinker  of  his  day.  In  his  oration  before  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  sixty 
years  ago,  Dr.  Bushnell  said  that  all  work  was 
for  an  end,  while  play  was  an  end  in  itself;  that 
play  was  the  highest  exercise  and  chief  end  of 
man. 

It  is  this  exercise  of  play  which  somehow  gets 
down  into  the  very  blood  of  the  American  un- 
dergraduate and  becomes  a  permanently  val- 
uable influence  in  the  making  of  the  man  and 
the  citizen.  It  is  difficult  exactly  to  define  the 
spirit  of  this  play  life,  but  one  who  has  really 
entered  into  American  college  athletic  events 
will  understand  it — the  spirit  of  college  tradi- 

40 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

tion  in  songs  and  cheers  sweeping  across  the 
vast,  brilliant  throng  of  vivacious  and  spell- 
bound youth ;  the  vision  of  that  fluttering  scene 
of  color  and  gaiety  in  the  June  or  October  sun- 
shine ;  the  temporary  freedom  of  a  thousand  ex- 
uberant undergraduates;  pretty  girls  vying 
with  their  escorts  in  loyalty  to  the  colors  they 
wear;  the  old  "grad,"  forgetting  himself  in  the 
spirit  of  the  game,  springing  from  his  seat  and 
throwing  his  hat  in  the  air  in  the  ebullition  of 
returning  youth;  the  mercurial  crowd  as  it  de- 
mands fair  play;  the  sudden  inarticulate  si- 
lences; the  spontaneous  outbursts;  the  disap- 
probation at  mean  or  abject  tricks, — or  that 
unforgetable  sensation  that  comes  as  one  sees 
the  vast  zigzagging  lines  of  hundreds  of  stu- 
dents, with  hands  holding  one  another's  shoul- 
ders in  the  wild  serpentine  dance,  finally  throw- 
ing their  caps  over  the  goal  in  a  great  sweep  of 
victory.  One  joins  unconsciously  with  these 
happy  spirits  in  this  grotesque  hilarity  as  they 
march  about  the  stadium  with  their  original 
and  laughable  pranks,  in  a  blissful  forgetful- 
ness,  for  the  moment  at  least,  that  there  is  any 
such  thing  in  existence  as  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions and  the  mysteries  of  spherical  trigonom- 

41 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

etry.  Is  there  any  son  of  an  American  col- 
lege who  has  really  entered  into  such  life  as 
this  who  does  not  look  back  lingeringly  to  his 
undergraduate  days,  grateful  not  only  for  the 
instruction  and  the  teachers  he  knew,  but  also 
for  those  childish  outbursts  of  pride  and  ideal- 
ism when  the  deepest,  poignant  loyalties  caught 
up  his  spirit  in  unforgetable  scenes: 

Ah!  happy  days!     Once  more  who  would  not  be  a  boy? 

A  friend  of  mine  had  a  son  who  had  been 
planning  for  a  long  time  to  go  to  Yale. 
Shortly  before  he  was  to  enter  college  he  went 
with  his  father  to  see  a  foot-ball  game  between 
Yale  and  Princeton.  On  this  particular  oc- 
casion Yale  vanquished  the  orange  and  black 
in  a  decisive  victory.  After  the  game  the  Yale 
men  were  marching  off  with  their  mighty 
shouts  of  triumph.  The  Princeton  students 
collected  in  the  middle  of  the  foot-ball-field, 
and  before  singing  "Old  Nassau,"  they  cheered 
with  even  greater  vigor  than  they  had  cheered 
at  any  time  during  the  game,  and  this  time  not 
for  Princeton,  but  for  Yale.  The  sons  of  Eli 
came  back  from  their  celebration  and  stopped 


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GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

to  listen  and  to  applaud.  As  the  mighty  tiger 
yell  was  going  up  from  hundreds  of  Prince- 
tonian  throats,  and  as  the  Princeton  men  fol- 
lowed their  cheers  by  singing  the  Yale 
"Boolah,"  the  young  man  who  stood  by  his 
father,  looked  on  in  silence,  indeed,  with  inex- 
pressible admiration.  Suddenly  he  turned  to 
his  father  and  said:  "Father,  I  have  changed 
my  mind.     I  want  to  go  to  Princeton." 

Such  events  are  associated  (in  the  minds  of 
undergraduates)  not  only  with  the  physical, 
but  with  the  spiritual,  with  the  ideal.  The 
struggle  on  the  athletic-field  has  meaning  not 
simply  to  a  few  men  who  take  part,  but  to 
every  student  on  the  side-lines,  while  the  pul- 
sating hundreds  who  sing  and  cheer  their  team 
to  victory  think  only  of  the  real  effort  of 
their  college  to  produce  successful  achieve- 
ment. 

Standing  beneath  a  tree  near  Soldiers'  Field 
at  Cambridge,  with  undergraduates  by  the  hun- 
dred eager  in  their  athletic  sports  on  one  side, 
and  the  ancient  roofs  of  Harvard  on  the  other, 
there  is  a  simple  marble  shaft  which  bears  the 
names  of  the  men  whom  the  field  commemo- 
rates, while  below  these  names  are  written  Em- 

45 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

erson's   words,    chosen   for  this   purpose   by- 
Lowell  : 


Though   love   repine   and   reason   chafe, 
There  came  a  voice  without  reply — 

'T  is  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 

When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die. 

Not  only  upon  the  shields  of  our  American 
universities  do  we  find  'Veritas";  in  spirit  at 
least  it  is  also  clearly  written  across  the  face 
of  the  entire  college  life  of  our  times.  Gentle- 
manliness,  open-mindedness,  originality,  honor, 
patriotism,  truth — these  are  increasingly  found 
in  both  the  serious  pursuits  and  the  play  life 
of  our  American  undergraduates.  The  de- 
partment in  which  these  ideals  are  sought  is 
not  so  important  as  the  certainty  that  the  stu- 
dent is  forming  such  ideals  of  thoroughness 
and  perfection.  This  search  for  truth  and  re- 
ality may  bring  to  our  undergraduates  unrest 
or  doubt  or  arduous  toil.  They  may  search 
for  their  answer  in  the  lecture-room,  on  the 
parade-ground,  in  the  hurlyburly  of  college 
comradeships,  in  the  competitive  life  of  college 
contests,  or  even  in  the  hard,  self-effacing  la- 

46 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

bors  of  the  student  who  works  his  way  through 
college.  While,  indeed,  it  may  seem  to  many 
that  the  highest  wisdom  and  the  finest  culture 
still  linger,  one  must  believe  that  the  main 
tendencies  in  the  life  of  American  undergradu- 
ates are  toward  the  discovery  of  and  devotion 
to  the  highest  truttw-rthe  truth  of  nature  and 
the  truth  of  God. 


47 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 


II 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 


IF  I  were  to  return  to  college,  I  should  take 
nothing  that  was  practical,"  remarked  a  re- 
cent college  graduate.  This  attitude  reveals 
by  contrast  a  somewhat  wide-spread  tendency 
of  opinion  toward  practical  and  progressive 
studies. 


At  a  public  gathering  not  long  since,  the 
president  of  a  great  State  institution  in  the 
Middle  West  said  that  he  believed  within  an- 
other decade  every  course  in  the  institution  of 
which  he  was  the  head  would  be  intended  sim- 
ply to  fit  men  to  earn  a  livelihood.  A  culti- 
vated disciple  of  quiet  and  delightful  studies 
who  overheard  this  remark  was  heard  to  say 
ilmost  in  a  groan,  "If  I  thought  that  was  true 
>f  American  education  generally,  I  should 
ant  to  die." 

An  even  more  significant  note  of  warning 
igainst  merely  bread-and-butter  studies  comes 

51 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

from  Amherst  College,  where  the  class  of  1885 
recently  presented  to  the  governing  board  the 
radical  plan  of  abolishing  entirely  the  degree 
of  bachelor  of  science,  with  the  purpose  of 
building  up  a  strictly  classical  course  for  a 
limited  number  of  students  admitted  to  college 
only  by  competitive  examinations.  The  plan 
provides  for  the  raising  of  a  fund  to  meet  any 
deficiency  caused  by  the  temporary  loss  of  stu- 
dents and  also  for  the  increase  of  teachers'  sal- 
aries. The  general  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  Am- 
herst committee  is  expressed  as  follows: 

The  proposition  for  which  Amherst  stands  is  that 
preparation  for  some  particular  part  of  life  does  not 
make  better  citizens  than  "preparation  for  the  whole 
of  it";  that  because  a  man  can  "function  in  society" 
as  a  craftsman  in  some  trade  or  technical  work,  he  is 
not  thereby  made  a  better  leader;  that  we  have  already 
too  much  of  that  statesmanship  marked  by  ability  "to 
further  some  dominant  social  interest/'  and  too  little 
of  that  which  is  "aware  of  a  world  moralized  by  prin- 
ciple, steadied  and  cleared  of  many  an  evil  thing  by 
true  and  catholic  reflection  and  just  feeling,  a  world 
not  of  interest,  but  of  ideas."  Amherst  upholds  the 
proposition  that  for  statesmen,  leaders  of  public 
thought,  for  literature,  indeed  for  all  work  which  de- 
mands culture  and  breadth  of  view,  nothing  can  take 

52 


Johnston  Gate  from  the  Yard,  Harvard  University 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

the  place  of  the  classical  education;  that  the  duty  of 
institutions  of  higher  education  is  not  wholly  performed 
when  the  youth  of  the  country  are  passed  from  the 
high  schools  to  the  universities  to  be  "vocationalized," 
but  that  there  is  a  most  important  work  to  be  per- 
formed by  an  institution  which  stands  outside  this 
straight  line  to  pecuniary  reward;  that  there  is  room 
for  at  least  one  great  classical  college,  and  we  believe 
for  many  such. 

These  opinions  are  impressive.  No  one  can 
visit  widely  our  American  colleges  without 
feeling  the  appropriateness  of  such  warnings 
and  demands.  A  story  is  told  of  the  president 
of  a  college  praying  in  chapel  for  the  prosper- 
ity of  his  school  and  all  new  and  "inferior"  in- 
stitutions. The  prayer  would  seem  to  have 
been  answered  in  the  last  decade,  which  marks 
the  marvelous  growth  of  modern  technical  in- 
stitutions in  America.  This  growth  has  been 
specially  pronounced  in  the  great  State  uni- 
versities and  in  the  institutions  fitted  to  train 
men  in  practical  education. 

GROWTH  OF  PRACTICAL  EDUCATION 

Dr.  William  R.  Harper  is  quoted  as  saying 
shortly  before  his  death  that  "no  matter  how 

55 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

liberally  the  private  institution  might  be  en- 
dowed, the  heritage  of  the  future,  at  least  in 
the  West,  is  to  be  the  State  university."  An 
ex-president  of  a  State  university  has  given  the 
following  indication  of  ten  years  of  advance 
in  attendance  of  students  at  fifteen  State  uni- 
versities in  comparison  with  attendance  at  fif- 
teen representative  Eastern  colleges  and  uni- 
versities : 


1896-97     1906-07 

State    universities     16,414        34,770 

Increase  112% 

Eastern    institutions    18,331        28,631 

Increase  56% 


Almost  any  one  of  our  great  universities  at 
present  has  many  times  the  wealth,  equipment, 
and  students  of  all  of  our  colleges  fifty  years 
ago.  Our  American  agricultural  and  me- 
chanical colleges,  the  greater  number  of  which 
have  arisen  within  ten  years,  now  enroll  more 
than  25,000  students.  In  1850  there  were  only 
eight  non-professional  graduate  students  in 
the  United  States.  In  1876,  when  Johns 
Hopkins  opened,  there  were  400  such  students. 
There  are  now  at  least  10,000  students  of  this 
class,  and  every  year  finds  an  additional  num- 

56 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

ber  of  our  larger  institutions  including  gradu- 
ate courses  preparing  for  practical  vocations, 
with  many  of  them  adding  facilities  for  gradu- 
ate study  during  the  summer. 

The  following  more  concrete  comparison  by 
Professor  E.  E.  Slosson  reveals  the  manner  in 
which  the  new  State  institutions  are  rapidly 
meeting  the  demands  of  modern  times  for  tech- 
nical and  professional  education;  for  the  chief 
progress  in  these  institutions  has  been  not  in 
the  old-fashioned  culture  studies,  but  in  special 
departments,  including  well-nigh  everything 
from  engineering  and  dairying  to  music  and 
ceramics : 

i       r  5   !*£«gzj 

Institutions,  ^g  w.2.g  a        afo  j*  g£  s5 

u    mil  in  an 

H  <  H  < 


Columbia    University    $1,675,000  $1,145,000  559 

Harvard    University    1,827,789  841,970  573  209 

University  of  Chicago    1,304,000  699,000  291  137 

University    of   Michigan    1,078,000  536,000  285  125 

Yale   University       1,088,921  524,577  365  158 

Cornell    University    1,082,513  510,931  507  140 

University   of    Illinois    1,200,000  491,675  414  136 

University  of  Wisconsin    998,634  489,810  297  157 

University  of  Pennsylvania    .  589,226  433,311  375  117 

University  of  California    844,000  408,000  350  136 

Stanford   University    850,000  365,000  136  230 

Princeton    University    442,232  308,650  163  235 

University   of  Minnesota    . . .  515,000  263,000  303  66 

Johns   Hopkins  University    ..  311,870  211,013  172  324 

57 


r 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

WHAT  IS  THE  CHIEF  END  OF  AN  AMERICAN 
COLLEGE? 

This  sudden  and  enormous  advance  in  the 
pursuit  of  technical  studies,  which  have  made 
the  State  universities  formidable  rivals  to  our 
older,  privately  endowed  institutions,  has 
aroused  uncertainty  as  to  the  real  object  of  col- 
legiate training.  Modern  commercialism, 
which  has  said  that  you  must  touch  liberal  stud- 
ies, if  at  all,  in  a  utilitarian  way,  has  swept  in  a 
mightyjcurrent  through  our  American  univer- 
sities. L_The  undergraduate  is  feeling  increas- 
ingly the  pressure  of  the  outside  modern  world 
— the  world  not  of  values,  but  of  dollars.  The 
sense  of  strain,  of  rush,  and  of  anxiety  which 
generally  pervades  our  business,  our  public  and 
our  professional  life,  has  pervaded  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  men  should  be  taught  first  of  all 
to  think  and  to  grow. 

The  present  tendency  of  students  is  to  feel 
that  any  form  of  education  that  does  not  as- 
sociate itself  directly  with  some  form  of  practi- 
cal and  significant  action  is  artificial,  unreal, 
and  undesirable^  Last  winter  I  visited  an  in- 
stitution on  the  Pacific  coast  where  literary 

58 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

studies  were  considered,  among  certain  classes 
of  students,  as  not  only  unpractical,  but  almost 
unmanly.  As  a  result  of  such  drift  in  educa- 
tional sentiment,  the  American  undergraduate 
is  in  danger  of  getting  prepared  for  an  emer- 
gency rather  than  for  life.  J  He  is  losing, 

In  action's  dizzying  eddy  whirled, 

The    something   that   infects   the   world. 

The  student  leads  his  life  noisily  and  hurriedly. 
He  scarcely  takes  time  to  see  it  all  plainly  with- 
out dust  and  confusion.  There  is  all  about 
him  a  blurred  sense  of  motion  and  duties.  His 
culture  lies  upon  him  in  lumps.  He  does  not 
allow  it  time  to  impress  him.  College  is  a  be- 
wildering episode  rather  than  a  place  of  clear 
vision. 

THE  NEED  OF  LEADERS  RATHER  THAN   MONEY- 
MAKERS 

It  is  far  easier  to  turn  out  of  our  colleges 
mechanical  experts  than  it  is  to  create  men  who 
are  thoughtful,  men  who  know  themselves  and 
the  world.  The  value  of  the  modern  man  to 
society  does  not  depend  upon  his  ability  to  do 

59 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

always  the  same  thing  that  everybody  else  is 
doing.  College  men  should  be  fitted  to  make 
public  sentiment  as  well  as  to  follow  it.  The 
educated  leader  should  be  in  advance  of  his 
period.  Independence  born  of  thoughtf ulness 
and  self-control  should  mark  his  thought  and 
decision.  The  world  looks  to  him  for  assistance 
in  vigorously  resisting  those  deteriorating  in- 
fluences which  would  commercialize  intellect, 
coarsen  ideas,  and  dilute  true  culture.  His 
hours  of  insight  and  vision  in  the  world  of  art, 
ideas,  letters,  and  moral  discipline  should  as- 
sist him  to  will  aright  when  high  vision  is 
blurred  by  the  duties  of  the  common  day.  His 
clearer  conception  of  highest  truth  should  lead 
him  to  hope  when  other  men  despair.  Our 
colleges  should  train  men  who  will  be  "trum- 
pets that  sing  to  battle"  against  all  compla- 
cency, indifference,  and  social  wrong. 

When  a  student,  however,  puts  his  profes- 
sion of  medicine  or  engineering  before  that  of 
responsible  leadership  in  social,  political,  moral, 
and  industrial  life,  hg  ppmsps  t.n  hejjjgal  factor 
in  the  modern  world.  We  already  have  a 
thousand  men  who  can  make  money  to  one  man 
who  can  think  and  make  other  men  think.     We 

60 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

have  a  thousand  followers  to  one  genuine 
leader  who  incorporates  in  his  own  mind  and 
heart  a  high  point  of  view  and  the  ability  to 
present  it  in  an  attractive  way.  It  is  one  thing 
for  an  undergraduate  to  go  out  from  his  in- 
stitution expert  in  electrical  science ;  it  is  quite 
another  thing  for  him  to  so  truly  discover  the 
spirit  of  life  itself,  as  to  be  able  to  harmo- 
nize his  expert  ability  with  the  broader  and 
deeper  life  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives. 

The  present  undergraduate  often  fails  la- 
mentably at  this  very  point.  He  frequently 
reminds  one  of  the  remark  of  an  old  gentle- 
man to  an  old  lady  whom  I  saw  at  a  backwoods 
railway-station  in  Oregon  watching  a  small 
white  dog  chasing  with  great  zeal  an  express- 
train  which  had  surged  past  the  station.  The 
old  lady,  turning  to  her  companion,  said  ea- 
gerly, "Do  you  think  he  will  catch  it?"  The 
old  man  answered,  "I  am  wondering  what  he 
will  do  with  the  blamed  thing  if  he  does  catch 
it."  The  college  undergraduate  likewise  is  of- 
ten uncertain  about  what  he  is  to  do  with  his 
profession  beyond  making  a  living  with  it. 
Our  colleges,  with  their  technical  training, 
should  give  the  conviction  that  a  physician  in  a 

61 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

community  is  more  than  a  medical  practitioner. 
His  success  as  a  physician  brings  with  it  an 
obligation  of  interest  and  leadership  in  all  of 
the  social,  civic,  and  philanthropic  movements 
of  the  town  or  city  in  which  he  works.  He 
should  discover  in  college  that  he  is  to  be  more 
than  a  doctor;  that  he  is  to  be  also  a  man  and  a 
citizen.  In  the  last  analysis,  for  real  success  it 
is  not  a  question  whether  a  man  is  a  great  engi- 
neer or  a  great  electrician  or  a  great  surgeon; 
it  is  the  question  of  individual  character. 

The  pressing  inquiry,  then,  for  all  under- 
graduate training  is,  Are  we  giving  to  our  boys 
the  kind  of  education  which  will  fill  their  fu- 
ture life  with  meaning?  A  man  must  live  with 
himself.  He  must  be  a  good  companion  for 
himself.  A  college  graduate,  whatever  his 
specialty,  should  be  able  to  spend  an  evening 
apartfrojpaJhe^ri2w^_The  theater,  the  auto- 
mobile, the  lobster-palace,  were  never  intended 
to  be  the  chief  end  of  collegiate  education.  A 
college  course  should  give  the  undergraduate 
tastes,  temperament,  and  habits  of  reading. 
A  graduate  who  studies  to  be  a  specialist  in 
any  line  needs  also  the  education  which  will 
give  him  depth,  background,  and  the  historical 

62 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

1 
significance  of  civilization  and  life  in  general. 

A  lady  at  a  dinner-party  was  making  des- 
perate attempts  to  interest  in  her  conversation 
a  certain  business  man  who  had  been  intro- 
duced to  her  as  a  graduate  of  a  prominent  uni- 
versity. She  talked  to  him  of  books,  educa- 
tion, theater,  races,  pictures,  society,  and  out- 
of-door  life.  All  of  her  efforts  were  futile. 
Finally  he  said,  "Try  me  on  leather;  that 's  my 
line."  This  college  graduate  lost  something 
important  in  his  incompetency  for  general  and 
intelligent  conversation.  His  loss  was  more 
tragic,  however,  as  a  representative  of  the  so- 
called  college-educated  classes,  exponents  of 
specialistic  training,  who  have  become  materi- 
ally successful,  but  who  are  without  those  per- 
sonal resources  necessary  for  their  own  enjoy- 
ment and  profit,  and  who  find  themselves  ut- 
terly inadequate  for  guidance  or  incentive  to 
their  fellowmen. 


ELECTIVE  STUDIES 

The  system  of  elective  studies  which  now 
widely  characterizes  the  training  in  our  higher 
educational  institutions  has  made  it  increasingly 

63 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

difficult  for  the  college  man  to  secure  a  clear 
idea  of  a  college  course  and  the  comprehensive 
training  which  is  his  due.  In  many  institu- 
tions the  whole  curriculum  is  in  a  state  of  un- 
stable equilibrium.  The  endeavor  to  follow 
the  demands  of  the  times  and  the  desire  to  se- 
cure patrons  and  students,  have  often  brought 
to  both  the  faculty  and  the  undergraduate  an 
uncertainty  as  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  col- 
lege. Even  in  freshman  and  sophomore  years 
the  arrangement  of  studies  is  often  left  to  the 
choice  of  the  immature  student.  In  one  of 
our  oldest  universities  there  is  at  present  only 
one  prescribed  course  of  study.  For  the  rest, 
the  students  are  allowed  to  choose  at  their  own 
sweet  will,  and  their  choice,  while  dictated  by  a 
variety  of  motives,  is  influenced  in  no  small  de- 
gree by  the  preponderance  of  emphasis,  both 
in  buildings  and  faculty,  upon  technical  educa- 
tion. Students  are  left  to  flounder  about  in 
their  selection  of  courses,  guided  neither  by  cur- 
riculum nor  life  purpose.  Recently  I  asked 
twenty-six  students  why  they  chose  their  stud- 
ies. Sixteen  of  them  gave  monetary  or  practi- 
cal reasons;  six  answered  that  the  studies 
chosen  furnished  the  line  of  least  resistance  as 

64 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

far  as  preparation  was  concerned;  and  only 
four  had  in  mind  comprehensive  culture  and 
preparation  for  life. 

I  sympathize  with  the  educator  who  said  re- 
cently: 

Is  it  not  time  that  we  stop  asking  indulgence  for 
learning  and  proclaim  its  sovereignty?  Is  it  not  time 
that  we  remind  the  college  men  of  this  country  that 
they  have  no  right  to  any  distinctive  place  in  any  com- 
munity unless  they  can  show  it  by  intellectual  achieve- 
ment? that  if  a  university  is  a  place  for  distinction  at 
all,  it  must  be  distinguished  by  conquest  of  mind? 

While  these  tendencies  threaten,  instead  of 
criticizing  too  severely  our  universities  and  our 
undergraduates,  we  should  strive  first  to  find 
the  reason  for  these  modern  scientific  and 
practical  lines  of  work;  and  second,  to  suggest, 
if  possible,  definite  ways  by  which  a  truer  har- 
mony in  educational  studies  may  be  brought 
about. 

EDUCATION  TO  MEET  POPULAR  DEMANDS 


The  rapid  extension  of  natural-physical  sci- 
ence in  the  last  fifty  years  has  had  much  to  do 
with  the  change  of  accent  in  American  educa- 

65 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

tion.  This  change  of  emphasis  has  effected  a 
distinct  transformation  in  the  curriculum,  in 
the  college  teacher  and  in  the  student  ideal. 

Should  one  care  to  get  one's  fingers  dusty 
with  ancient  documents,  one  might  turn  to  an 
old  leaflet  in  the  files  of  the  library  at  Colum- 
bia, dated  November  2,  1853.  It  is  the  report 
of  the  trustees  of  Columbia  College  upon  the 
establishment  of  a  university  system.  Among 
other  things  this  report  outlines,  in  accordance 
with  the  ideas  of  the  trustees,  "the  mission  of 
the  college." 

This  mission  is,  "to  direct  and  superintend 
the  mental  and  moral  culture.  The  design  of 
a  college  is  to  make  perfect  the  human  intellect 
in  all  its  parts  and  functions;  by  means  of  a 
thorough  training  of  all  the  intellectual  facul- 
ties, to  obtain  their  full  development;  and  by 
the  proper  guidance  of  the  moral  functions,  to 
direct  them  to  a  proper  exertion.  To  form  the 
mind,  in  short,  is  the  high  design  of  education 
as  sought  in  a  College  Course."  The  report 
hereupon  proceeds  to  note  that  unfortunately 
this  sentiment,  "manifest  and  just"  though  it 
be,  "does  not  meet  with  universal  sympathy  or 
acquiescence."     On  the  contrary,  the  demand 

66 


»    >  •  »  .  • 


*  *      i         a  m 


•  •  •«•'»» 


*      »  •       •»    a  o 


The  Library,  Columbia  University 


aiwsoiuaD 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

for  what  is  termed  progressive  knowledge 
.  .  .  and  for  fuller  instruction  in  what  are 
called  the  useful  and  practical  sciences,  is  at 
variance  with  this  fundamental  idea.  The 
public  generally,  unaccustomed  to  look  upon 
the  mind  except  in  connection  with  the  body, 
and  to  regard  it  as  a  machine  for  promoting 
the  pleasures,  the  conveniences,  or  the  comforts 
of  the  latter,  will  not  be  satisfied  with  a  system 
of  education  in  which  they  are  unable  to  per- 
ceive the  direct  connection  between  the  knowl- 
edge imparted  and  the  bodily  advantages  to  be 
gained.  The  committee  therefore  "think  that 
while  they  would  retain  the  system  having  in 
view  the  most  perfect  intellectual  training, 
they  might  devise  parallel  courses,  having  this 
design  at  the  foundation,  but  still  adapted  to 
meet  the  popular  demand." 

We  have  here  one  of  the  early  indications 
of  "parallel  courses"  in  one  of  our  institutions 
of  higher  learning  as  a  concession  to  popular 
demands.  But  this  concession  at  Columbia 
was  made  before  the  immense  extension  and 
development  of  modern  natural,  physical,  and 
industrial  science.  Education  or  culture  in  the 
early  fifties  was  something  easy  to  define.     It 

69 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

included  logic,  literature,  oratory,  conic  sec- 
tions, and  religion.  Since  that  date,  however, 
the  American  undergraduate  has  discovered 
modern  research  work  at  the  German  univer- 
sity. Cecil  Rhodes  has  opened  Oxford  for 
American  students  with  his  "golden  key." 
The  American  student  has  been  called  upon  to 
match  with  his  technical  ability  the  enormous 
and  rapid  development  of  a  new  material  civili- 
zation, and  educational  institutions  take  color 
from  the  social  and  political  media  in  which 
they  exist.  In  fact,  it  cannot  be  easily  esti- 
mated how  real  or  how  comprehensive  a  factor 
the  college  graduate  has  been  in  guiding  and 
shaping  this  practical  and  progressive  awaken- 
ing. 

The  American  undergraduate  is  more  than 
ever  before  contemporaneous  with  all  that  is 
real  and  important  in  modern  existence.  He 
is  filled  with  enthusiasm  for  civic  and  social  and 
religious  investigation  and  improvement. 
With  self-reliant  courage  he  works  his  way 
through  college,  tutoring,  waiting  on  table,  and 
performing  other  real  services.  He  debates 
with  zeal  economics,  immigration,  and  labor 
questions.     Indeed,  the  modern  American  uni- 

70 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

versity  is  taking  increasingly  firmer  hold  upon 
the  life  of  the  nation.  The  college  graduate 
of  fifty  years  ago  was  more  or  less  a  thing 
apart.  If  he  was  strong  in  his  literary  studies, 
he  was  also  weak  in  his  attachment  to  life  it- 
self, where  education  really  has  its  working 
arena.  In  comparison  with  him,  the  student 
to-day  spends  a  greater  proportion  of  his  time 
in  the  study  of  political  science.  One  feels  the 
limitation  of  the  modern  undergraduate  espe- 
cially in  the  sweep  of  his  literary  knowledge, 
and  in  his  acquaintance  with  abstract  thought, 
art,  and  poetry.  But  when  we  see  student  and 
professor  working  together  on  our  American 
farms,  bringing  about  a  new  and  higher  type 
of  rural  life;  when  we  find  our  mechanical  engi- 
neers not  only  in  the  mountains  and  on  the 
Western  prairies,  but  in  the  heart  of  India  or 
inland  China  or  South  Africa,  building  there 
their  bridges  and  railroad  tunnels  according  to 
the  ideas  seen  in  the  vision  of  their  new  practi- 
cal educational  training,  we  are  bound  to  ask 
whether  the  modern  undergraduate  is  not  truly 
interested  in  the  deep  aim  of  all  true  scholar- 
ship, namely,  the  spiritual  and  concrete  con- 
struction of  life  by  means  of  ideas  made  real. 

71 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

Ambassador  Bryce's  opinion  of  the  American 
universities  carries  weight,  and  of  them  he  has 
said: 

If  I  may  venture  to  state  the  impression  which  (the 
American  universities  jhave  made  upon  me,  I  will  say 
that  while  of  all  the  institutions  of  the  country  they 
are  those  of  which  the  American  speaks  most  modestly, 
and  indeed  deprecatingly,  they  are  those  which  seem 
to  be  at  this  moment  making  the  swiftest  progress, 
and  to  have  the  brightest  promise  for  the  future.  They 
/are  supplying  exactly  those  things  which  European 
cities  have  hitherto  found  lacking  to  America;  and 
they  are  contributing  to  her  political  as  well  as  to  her 
I  contemplative  life  elements  of  inestimable  worth.         J 

But  since  undergraduate  training  must  deal 
not  simply  with  the  theory  of  education,  but 
also  with  the  imperative  demands  and  condi- 
tions of  a  new  time,  there  must  be  discovered 
practical  ways  by  which  our  undergraduates 
may  save  their  literary  ideals  at  the  same  time 
that  they  enlarge  their  practical  and  progress- 
ive knowledge;  means  by  which  they  may  dis- 
cover literary,  historical,  linguistic,  and  phil- 
osophical values  without  losing  their  mathe- 
matics and  their  physical  and  material  sciences. 

72 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

To  the  end,  therefore,  of  making  cultural 
studies  as  strong,  attractive,  and  profitable  to 
our  undergraduates  as  practical  and  scientific 
training,  our  institutions  should  train  men  of 
large  caliber  to  teach  English  and  belles-let- 
tres. They  should  discover  great  teachers  and 
inspiring  personalities. 


PERSONALITY  OF  GREAT  TEACHERS 

President  Gilman  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity took  as  his  motto,  "Men  before  build- 
ings." The  subject  of  securing  great  teach- 
ers for  students  is  perhaps  the  most  vital  topic 
which  can  be  considered,  since  from  the  point 
of  view  of  undergraduates  a  professor,  whether 
teaching  civil  engineering  or  Greek,  is  invari- 
ably influential  because  of  what  he  is  person- 
ally. 

In  a  large  university  which  I  recently  visited 
I  was  told  that  there  were  three  thousand  stu- 
dents and  five  hundred  instructors  and  pro- 
fessors, an  average  of  a  professor  to  every  six 
students.  Upon  asking  several  of  the  under- 
graduates how  many  professors  they  knew  per- 
sonally, I  was  somewhat  astounded  to  find  that 

73 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

less  than  a  dozen  of  these  six  hundred  teachers 
came  into  personal  contact  with  the  students 
outside  of  the  classes.  One  graduate  told  me 
that  he  had  not  been  in  the  home  of  more  than 
three  professors  during  his  college  course. 

There  are  undoubtedly  reasons  for  this  lack 
of  association  between  the  professors  and  the 
undergraduates.  In  a  large  university,  the 
demand  upon  the  teacher  for  more  work  than 
he  should  rightfully  undertake,  the  ever-in- 
creasing interest  of  the  student  in  college  af- 
fairs, with  many  other  influences,  are  con- 
stantly presented  as  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
the  teacher's  close  relationship  with  the  student. 
But  the  important  point  in  this  association  be- 
tween student  and  professor  is  that  in  many 
cases  the  professor  has  nothing  vital  and  indi- 
vidual to  give  the  undergraduate  when  he 
meets  him.  In  too  many  cases  he  is  a  dry  and 
weary  man,  living  his  life  in  books  rather  than 
in  men.  A.  C.  Benson  has  described  a  Cam- 
bridge don  in  terms  that  at  times  we  fear  fit 
some  college  professors  of  our  own  land.  He 
sits  "like  a  moulting  condor  in  a  corner,  or 
wanders  seeking  a  receptacle  for  his  informa- 
tion."    The  American  college  teacher  has  too 

74 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

often  been  chosen  simply  because  of  his 
scholarship.  Our  institutions  of  learning  have 
been  obsessed  with  the  mere  value  of  the  de- 
gree of  doctor  of  philosophy.  As  a  conse- 
quence, many  a  young  professor  is  scholarly 
and  expert  in  his  knowledge  of  his  subject,  but 
utterly  without  ability  to  impart  it  with  inter- 
est. He  lacks  driving  force  as  well  as  guid- 
ing and  regulating  force.  He  seems  at  times 
without  the  capacity  for  real  feeling.  He  is 
not  alive  to  the  issues  of  the  time  in  which  he 
lives.  He  starts  his  subject  a  century  behind 
the  point  of  view  in  which  his  scholars  are  in- 
terested. Too  often,  alas!  he  misses  the  chief 
opportunity  of  a  college  teacher  in  not  becom- 
ing friendly  with  his  undergraduates ;  for  there 
is  no  comradeship  like  the  comradeship  of  let- 
ters, the  comradeship  of  knowledge,  the  com- 
radeship of  those  whose  lives  are  united  in  the 
higher  aims  of  serious  education. 

Letters  have  never  lacked  their  fascination 
when  they  have  been  embodied  in  the  thought 
and  personalities  of  great  teachers.  Albert 
Harkness,  with  his  face  aglow  with  literary  en- 
thusiasm, reading  "Prometheus  Bound,"  in  his 
lecture-room  in  the  old  University  Hall  at 

75 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

Providence,  is  one  of  the  unfading  memories 
of  my  undergraduate  days.  When  Tennyson 
said,  "J  am  sending  my  son  not  to  Marlbor- 
ough, but  to  Bradley,  the  great  teacher,"  it 
was  not  a  subject  he  had  in  mind,  but  a  per- 
sonality.  In  one  institution  which  I  visit, 
virtually  the  entire  undergraduate  body  elects 
botany.  A  student  said  to  me  one  day,  "We 
do  not  care  especially  for  botany,  but  we  would 

elect  anything  to  be  under  Dr.  ."     Not 

long  ago,  attending  a  college  dinner  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  I  heard  a  professor  at 
my  side  lamenting  the  tendency  to  irreverence 
on  the  part  of  American  college  men.  While 
we  were  speaking,  ex-President  Northrop 
came  into  the  room,  and  the  entire  crowd  of 
students  were  on  their  feet  in  an  instant,  cheer- 
ing their  beloved  president.  One  of  the  un- 
dergraduates closed  his  remarks  by  saying  that 
the  deepest  impression  of  his  college  days  had 
occurred  in  the  chapel  when  their  honored 
president  prayed;  and  he  quoted  the  following 
verse : 

When  Prexy  prays 
Our  heads  all  bow, 
A  sense  of  peace 
Smooths  every  brow, 
76 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

Our  hearts,  deep  stirred, 
No  whisper  raise 
At  chapel  time 
When  Prexy  prays. 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  THE  LECTURE-ROOM 

The  classroom  presentation  of  the  college 
professor  is  also  highly  important.  Many  a 
subject  is  spoiled  for  a  student  because  of  the 
pedantic,  priggish,  or  solemn  manner  of  the 
teacher.  Many  a  teacher  is  devoted  to  his  sub- 
ject and  painstaking,  but  his  lack  of  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  use  of  incident,  epigram,  and 
enticing  speech  in  presenting  his  subject,  pre- 
vents his  popularity  and  power  as  a  teacher. 
Woodrow  Wilson  says  that  he  had  been  teach- 
ing for  twenty  years  before  he  discovered  that 
the  students  forgot  his  facts,  but  remembered 
his  stories.  We  realize  that  tables  of  popula- 
tion, weights,  and  measures,  temperatures, 
birth-rates,  and  dimensions,  are  at  times  neces- 
sary, but  these  should  be  used  in  the  classroom 
with  moderation.  * 

Too  often  a  teacher  takes  for  granted  that 
he  has  an  uninteresting  subject,  and  therefore 
gives  up  the  task  of  making  it  attractive.     A 

77 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

professor  of  mathematics,  endeavoring  to 
evade  the  obligation  for  good  teaching,  gave 
to  a  professor  of  chemistry,  whose  lecture- 
room  was  always  crowded  with  interested  stu- 
dents, the  following  reason  for  the  unpopu- 
larity of  his  subject :  "The  trouble  with  math- 
ematics is  that  nothing  ever  happens.  If, 
when  an  equation  is  solved,  it  would  blow  up 
or  give  off  a  bad  odor,  I  should  get  as  many 
students  as  you."  The  real  reason,  however, 
was  deeper  than  the  nature  of  his  subject.  It 
lay  in  the  nature  of  the  man.  He  did  not 
have  the  power  to  bring  his  subject  into  vital 
contact  with  reality  and  with  the  life  of  his 
students. 

The  lecture  plan  also  handicaps  many  a 
teacher  in  this  important  task  of  getting  near 
the  student  and  drawing  him  out.  The  semi- 
nar of  our  larger  universities  and  graduate 
schools  help  much  in  individualizing  the 
students.  Students  may  be  talked  to  death. 
They  themselves  often  want  to  talk.  An 
undergraduate  in  the  South,  after  hearing 
a  professor  who  was  without  terminal  facilities, 
told  me  the  old  story  of  Josh  Billings,  who  de- 
fined a  bore  as  a  man  who  talked  so  much  about 

78 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

himself  that  you  could  n't  talk  about  yourself. 
In  many  institutions  the  students  also  are 
forced  to  take  too  many  lectures.  Their  minds 
become  jaded.  Thinking  is  the  last  thing  they 
have  power  to  do  in  the  lecture-room.  There 
is  little  desire  or  opportunity  for  intellectual 
reaction;  as  one  professor  of  a  Western  uni- 
versity humorously  remarked: 

They  do  not  listen^  however  attentive  or  orderly  they 
may  be.  The  bell  rings,  and  a  troop  of  tired-looking 
boys,  followed  perhaps  by  a  larger  number  of  meek- 
eyed  girls,  file  into  the  classroom,  sit  down,  remove  the 
expressions  from  their  faces,  open  their  note-books  on 
the  broad  chair-arms,  and  receive.  It  is  about  as  in- 
spiring an  audience  as  a  room  full  of  phonographs 
holding  up  their  brass  trumpets. 

TWO  WAYS  OF  TEACHING  HISTORY 

The  most  discouraging  moments  of  my  col- 
lege days  occurred  during  the  lecture  hours  of 
history,  not  because  I  did  not  have  a  natural 
bent  for  history,  but  because  the  professor 
made  the  topic,  for  me,  uninteresting.  My 
mind  became  a  blank  almost  as  soon  as  I  en- 
tered the  classroom.  Lecture  days  in  history 
covered  me  with  a  darkness  beyond  that  which 

79 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

I  had  ever  imagined  could  emanate  from  the 
world  of  fallen  spirits.  My  powers  went  into 
eclipse.  There  seemed  to  be  a  kind  of  auto- 
matic cut-off  between  my  brains  and  my  note- 
book. My  only  source  of  comfort  consisted 
in  the  fact  that  my  miseries  had  companion- 
ship. In  some  examinations,  I  remember, 
only  a  small  remnant  of  the  class  succeeded 
in  satisfying  the  demands  of  our  scholarly 
teacher. 

I  can  only  remember  flashes  and  hints  of  a 
long,  solemn,  student  face,  shrouded  with 
whiskers,  bending  with  piercing  eye  over  books 
which  seemed  only  slightly  less  dry  than  a  re- 
mainder biscuit,  droning,  in  "hark-from-the- 
tombs-a-doleful-sound"  incantation,  words, 
which  to  our  vagrant  attention  were  just  words, 
belonging  to  remote  centuries,  while  about  me 
my  companions  shivered  audibly,  waiting  to 
be  called  up.  The  professor  was  called  a  great 
student  of  history.  He  might  have  been.  We 
gladly  admitted  this:  it  was  the  chief  compli- 
ment we  could  pay  him.  As  a  teacher  and  in- 
spirer  of  boys,  however,  he  was  a  good  example 
of  the  way  to  make  history  impregnable. 

I  hold  in  memory,  also,  another  professor 
80 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

who  taught  history.  He  was  seldom  called  a 
>rofessor.  The  students  called  him  "Benny." 
'here  was  a  kind  of  lingering  affection  in  our 
voices  as  we  spoke  his  name.  His  lecture- 
room  was  always  crowded.  No  student  ever 
went  to  sleep,  no  student  became  so  frightened 
that  he  lost  his  wits,  no  student  ever  took  him- 
self too  seriously.  There  was  an  element  of 
humor  and  humanness  which  was  constantly 
kindled  by  this  great,  manly  teacher  and  which 
fired  at  frequent  intervals  every  student  heart. 
His  illustrations  were  not  confined  to  Horatius 
on  the  bridge,  Garibaldi  promising  his  soldiers 
disaster  and  death,  or  Luther  at  Worms.  He 
attached  history  to  modern  themes.  His  his- 
torical situations  were  described  not  in  the 
terms  of  tedious  systems,  but  in  the  person- 
alities of  great  men.  We  somehow  felt  that 
he  himself  was  greater  than  anything  he  said ; 
that  he  himself  was  a  great  man.  He  found 
interest  in  the  life  of  college  as  well  as  in  the 
work  of  college.  He  talked  about  the 
last  foot-ball  game  and  the  reason  why  the  col- 
lege was  defeated  and  the  lessons  that  men 
should  draw  from  their  failure.  The  value  of 
his  remarks  was  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  most 

83 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

of  the  men  had  seen  him  on  the  running- 
track  in  the  gymnasium,  or  on  the  front 
row  of  the  grand  stand,  cheering  patri- 
otically with  both  voice  and  arms.  I  remember 
how  he  used  to  add  driving  power  to  our  awak- 
ening resolves  and  ambitions.  We  were  quite 
likely  to  forget  that  we  were  learning  history. 
To-day  at  alumni  dinners  the  mere  mention  of 
the  name  "Benny"  brings  an  enthusiasm  which 
the  most  eloquent  speech  of  any  other  man 
seems  incapable  of  invoking.  Here  was  a  man 
who  also  taught  history;  but  the  man  was  more 
than  his  book,  he  was  more  than  his  subject: 
he  was  the  light  and  the  blood  of  it,  and  the 
glory  of  that  theme  still  brightens  the  path  of 
every  one  of  those  hundreds  of  students  who 
caught  a  new  and  radiant  vision  of  the  march 
of  events  in  the  light  of  a  great  man's  eyes. 
It  was  of  such  teachers  that  Emerson  must 
have  been  thinking  when  he  said,  "There  is  no 
history,  only  biography,"  and  again,  "An  in- 
stitution is  but  the  lengthened  shadow  of  a 
man." 

It  is  of  such  men  that  other  college  grad- 
uates think  to-day,  even  as  Matthew  Arnold 
thought  of  Jowett  at  Balliol: 

84 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

For  rigorous   masters  seized   my  youth, 

And   purged    its    faith,    and   trimmed  its  fire, 

Shew'd  me  the  high,  white  star  of  truth, 
There  bade  me  gaze,  and  there  aspire. 

wanted:  the  geeat  teacher 

But  how  are  we  to  train  such  teachers  for 
our  undergraduates?  This  is  no  child's  task. 
It  is  the  matchless  opportunity  of  the  college ; 
it  is  the  crying  need  of  our  times.  A  large 
proportion  of  undergraduates  in  college  lec- 
ture-rooms are  virtually  untouched  in  either 
their  feelings  or  their  intellects  by  the  ministry 
of  the  church.  Whatever  the  ministry  may 
have  been  in  our  father's  times,  it  is  not  to-day 
significant  or  effective  in  imparting  its  mes- 
sage to  students.  The  fact  is  periodically 
demonstrated  by  test  questions  of  teachers  to 
their  students  concerning  the  Bible,  English 
literature,  and  church  history.  I  have  recently 
visited  a  dozen  of  the  leading  preparatory 
schools  whose  headmasters  and  teachers  quite 
invariably  unite  in  lamenting  the  inadequacy 
of  the  Sunday-schools  and  of  religious  train- 
ing in  the  home.  Indeed,  many  students  go 
up  to  our  best  preparatory  schools  in  almost  a 

85 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

heathenish  condition  as  regards  religion  and 
Christian  knowledge.  It  is  the  day  and  time 
of  the  teacher's  ministry  in  both  secondary 
schools  and  in  colleges.  No  pulpit  in  our  day 
is  more  far-reaching  and  decisive  than  the  desk 
of  the  college  teacher.  The  college  professor 
who  does  not  forget  that  he  is  first  a  man,  then 
a  professor,  and  who  can  get  past  the  friend- 
ship of  books  and  knowledge  to  a  genuine 
friendship  with  students,  can  be  the  highest 
force  in  our  present  day  civilization.  But  the 
teacher  says :  "I  am  only  a  teacher  of  literature, 
or  of  chemistry,  or  of  engineering,  or  of  bridge- 
building.  I  am  not  an  evangelist  or  a  moral 
reformer,  or  a  promoter  of  polite  accomplish- 
ments or  of  social  service."  Much  of  this  is 
true  also  of  the  great  teachers  of  history.  Yet 
somehow  these  men  found  in  their  specialty  the 
door  through  which  they  entered  into  the  very 
hearts  and  lives  of  their  school-boys. 

A  short  time  ago  at  the  University  of  Iowa 
I  had  the  opportunity  of  meeting  at  luncheon 
thirty  members  of  the  faculty.  The  subject 
for  discussion  was:  "What  can  the  professor 
do  really  to  assist  students  at  the  University 
of  Iowa  in  discovering  the  values  worth  while 

86 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

in  college  life?"  Approximately  one-half  of 
the  teachers  for  various  reasons  prayed  to  be 
excused  from  the  discussion.  I  was  specially 
interested  in  the  answers  of  the  other  men — 
among  whom  were  the  men,  according  to  stu- 
dent testimony,  who  had  a  real  hold  upon  the 
university  life.  One  man  was  of  the  depart- 
ment of  chemistry.  He  was  prominent  in  stu- 
dent activities.  When  he  was  introduced,  a 
student  said,  "There  is  no  man  more  truly 

liked  in  the  university  than  Professor  ." 

As  he  talked,  we  felt  that,  while  he  might  be  a 
good  teacher  of  chemistry,  his  department  was 
chiefly  important  in  giving  him  a  point  of  de- 
parture from  which  he  could  go  forth  to  in- 
terest himself  in  the  life  of  young  men.  After 
the  conference  he  said  to  me:  "If  professors 
want  influence  with  students,  let  them  appear 
at  debates,  at  athletic  games,  and  at  student 
mass-meetings;  let  them  show  real  interest  in 
undergraduate  activities  of  all  sorts,  even  at 
personal  sacrifice." 

Another  professor  was  a  teacher  of  English. 
He  was  not  interested  in  athletics  or  in  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  students  so  much  as  in  re- 
vealing to  students  in  the  classroom  as  well  as 

87 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

outside  the  classroom  the  charm  of  literary- 
things.  That  was  his  message — his  individual 
message  to  his  college.  His  life-work  was 
more  than  presenting  the  evolution  of  the  Eng- 
lish novel:  it  was  a  mission  to  students  to  se- 
cure on  their  part  habits  of  reading  and  a  taste 
for  genuine  literature  which  in  after  years 
would  be  to  many  the  most  priceless  reward  of 
their  college  days.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
two  college  teachers  should  present  the  same 
truth  in  the  same  way,  but  when  college  pro- 
fessors and  instructors,  presidents,  deans,  and 
tutors,  realize  that  teaching  to-day  as  in  for- 
mer days  is  a  calling,  not  simply  a  means  of 
livelihood,  and  that  every  man  who  holds  any 
such  position  must  somehow  discover  how  to 
reach  personally  at  least  a  small  circle  of  stu- 
dents, then  our  colleges  will  not  longer  be  de- 
fined as  "knowledge  shops,"  but  as  the  homes 
of  those  inspirations  and  friendships,  those 
ideals  and  incitements,  which  make  life  more 
than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment. 

While  the  drift  of  our  modern  life  in  the  out- 
side world  may  be  toward  technical  and  sci- 
entific education,  the  drift  in  college  is  still  to- 
ward the  great  teacher — the  man  of  thought- 

88 


EDUCATION  A  LA  CARTE 

provoking  power  and  of  spiritual  capacity; 
sincere  and  genuine  both  in  scholarship  and 
lanhood,  of  whom  one  can  speak,  as  Carlyle 
spoke  of  Schiller,  "a  high  ministering  servant 
at  Truth's  altar,  and  bore  him  worthily  of  the 
office  he  held." 


89 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 


* 


Ill 

V 

THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

RUDYARD  KIPLING  speaks  of  four 
street  corners  of  four  great  cities  where 
a  man  may  stand  and  see  pass  everybody  of 
note  in  the  world.  There  are  likewise  vantage- 
points  in  our  American  colleges  from  which 
one  may  discover  not  only  the  influential  un- 
dergraduate types,  but  also  the  real  life  of  their 
environment.  One  of  these  places  is  the  col- 
lege campus. 

Undergraduate  life  falls  into  two  broad 
divisions :  college  work,  pertaining  to  the  study 
and  the  classroom;  and  college  relaxation, 
centering  upon  the  campus.  The  latter  in- 
cludes social  life,  amusements,  athletics,  and 
the  other  voluntary  exercises  in  which  students 
meet  for  fellowship  and  competition.  The 
close  tie  between  college  work  and  college  play 
is  often  shown.  A  change  in  student  senti- 
ment has  instant  effect  on  student  work,  while 

93 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

no  rules  of  the  faculty  can  nullify  those  deeply 
rooted  principles  of  student  life  which  make 
all  college  men  akin. 


A  WEST  POINT  INCIDENT 

This  relation  of  student  feeling  to  college 
authority  was  shown  not  long  ago  at  West 
Point.  The  cadet  corps  was  under  arrest  for 
having  given  the  "silence"  to  an  officer  in  the 
mess-hall  during  supper,  for  reasons  deemed 
by  the  cadets  to  be  vital  to  corps  honor  and  dig- 
nity. The  first  silence  occurred  at  supper. 
The  whole  corps  of  cadets,  450  men,  were 
marched  back  to  barracks  supperless,  and  were 
placed  under  arrest  in  their  rooms.  Again  at 
breakfast  the  cadets  repeated  the  silence,  for 
which  they  were  returned  to  barracks,  but  not 
until  they  had  been  made  to  "double  time"  up 
and  down  the  road  for  about  twenty  minutes. 
That  morning  the  cadets  had  virtually  no 
breakfast.  At  the  next  formation  for  mid- 
day dinner  an  incident  occurred  which  struck 
a  chord  even  deeper  than  discipline  and  au- 
thority, and  broke  the  insubordination  of  the 
students.     In  the  autumn  one  of  the  cadets 

94 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

had  brought  from  home  a  graphophone,  and 
among  the  comic-song  cylinders  was  one  which 
pictured  a  non-domestic  husband  about  to  slip 
quietly  away  from  home  for  an  evening  at  the 
club,  when  his  wife  confronted  him  with  the 
command, 

Put  on  your  slippers ;  you  're  in  for  the  night. 

This  song  was  very  popular  with  the  cadets. 
They  were  drawn  up  in  front  of  the  barracks, 
every  man  indignant,  obstinate,  and  deter- 
mined to  repeat  the  silence,  and  to  continue  it 
even  at  the  risk  of  starvation  and  confinement. 
At  this  critical  moment  the  graphophone,  which 
had  been  set  to  begin  its  work  five  minutes 
after  its  humorous  owner  had  left  his  room,  be- 
gan to  sing  in  a  high-pitched  voice  through  the 
open  window  directly  above  the  lines  of  cadets, 

Put  on  your  slippers ;  you  're  in  for  the  night. 

The  effect  was  irresistible.  It  was  like  the 
changing  of  a  current  in  an  electric  battery. 
The  eyes  of  the  cadets,  despite  the  fact  that 
they  were  at  attention,  sought  the  eyes  of  their 

97 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

fellows;  their  faces  relaxed,  then  broke  into  a 
smile.  By  the  time  they  reached  the  mess-hall 
the  whole  corps  was  laughing,  and  their  sense 
of  humor  had  swept  away  the  sense  of  anger 
and  pride.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  res- 
toration of  the  traditional  West  Point  disci- 
pline. The  campus  had  spoken  to  the  class- 
room. 

"grown-up"  collegians 

It  is  through  an  understanding  of  this  spirit 
of  the  campus  that  the  work  of  American  un- 
dergraduates can  be  adjusted  to  modern  de- 
mands. The  work  of  the  classroom  and  ex- 
amination-hall makes  for  democracy,  while  the 
social  life  of  the  college  makes  for  conservatism 
and  aristocracy.  Campus  life  is  increasingly 
difficult  to  understand  because  of  its  growing 
complexity.  The  material  needs  of  our  time 
have  created  a  class  of  undergraduates  bent  on 
becoming  specialists,  and  these  men  have  in- 
creasingly less  time  for  either  college  work  or 
college  life;  for  them  the  undergraduate 
course  is  something  to  be  hurried  through  as  a 
short   cut   to    professional    efficiency.     Even 

98 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

athletics  and  college  affairs  have  only  a  slen- 
der hold  upon  these  utilitarian  specialists. 
They  have  a  "grown-up"  look  on  their  faces  as, 
eager  for  scientific  research,  they  rush  to  and 
fro  between  their  rooms  and  their  labora- 
tories. 

Undergraduate  life  is  now  likewise  influ- 
enced by  the  influx  of  students  who  are  not  the 
sons  of  college  men,  but  who  come  from  homes 
the  chief  ideals  of  which  have  been  derived  from 
counting-rooms  and  laboratories,  from  bro- 
kers' and  railroad  offices.  These  students, 
scions  of  a  property-getting  class,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  social  and  the  scientific  students 
in  college,  help. to  change  the  classical  tradi- 
tions. They  emphasize  the  campus  side  of  col- 
lege life  more  than  that  of  the  lecture-room. 
Their  eyes  are  ,'upon  the  stadium  rather  than 
upon  the  library;  the  delights  of  scholarship 
influence  them  less  than  ambition  for  leader- 
ship and  the  importance  of  "making  good"  in 
student  affairs.  They  are  in  college  for  "pop- 
ular" reasons,  and  too  often  fail  to  learn  how 
to  think.  But  they  are  eager,  versatile,  adapt- 
able, with  a  ready  capacity  for  social  adjust- 
ment and  modern  expression. 

99 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

COSMOPOLITAN   LIFE  AT   COLLEGE 

Furthermore,  the  student  world  has  been 
subdivided  until  it  is  a  wholly  different  thing 
from  what  it  was  fifty  or  even  twenty  years 
ago.  While  in  the  seventies  the  college  stu- 
dent knew  every  man  in  his  class,  in  the  large 
institution  to-day  an  undergraduate  will  meet 
in  the  college  yard  scores  of  classmates  who 
are  perfect  strangers,  and  to  whom  he  has  no 
more  idea  of  speaking  than  to  persons  whom 
he  has  never  seen  before.  The  student  who 
has  been  brought  up  always  to  dine  in  a  dinner- 
coat  will  have  for  his  table-companions 
men  who  have  never  owned  a  dress-coat  and 
who  see  no  immediate  prospect  of  needing 
one. 

The  influx  of  foreign  students  has  added  to 
the  cosmopolitan  life  of  American  institutions. 
So  far  as  they  are  Orientals,  the  English  de- 
partments are  specially  modified  both  in  the 
character  of  the  attendance  and  the  instruction 
by  their  presence.  The  professor's  task  of  ad- 
justing instruction  to  a  mixed  assembly  of 
American,  Indian,  Mohammedan,  Porto  Rican, 
Chinese,  and  Japanese  students  may  be  in- 

100 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS' 

f erred  from  the  answer  of  a  young  East  Indian 
student  who  was  asked  to  describe  in  English 
his  daily  routine: 

At  the  break  of  day  I  rises  from  my  own  bed,  then 
I  employ  myself  till  8  o'clock,  after  which  I  employ 
myself  to  bathe,  then  take  for  my  body  some  sweet- 
meat, and  just  at  9%  I  came  to  school  to  attend  my 
class  duty,  then,  at  2%  p.  m.  I  return  from  school  and 
engage  myself  to  do  my  further  duties  then  I  engage 
for  a  quarter  to  take  my  tiffin,  then  I  study  till  5  p.  M., 
after  which  I  began  to  play  anything  which  comes  in 
my  head.  After  8%  half  pass  to  eight  we  are  began 
to  sleep,  before  sleeping  I  told  a  constable  just  11  o' 
he  came  and  rose  us  from  half  pass  elevan  we  began  to 
read  still  morning.      f 

The  familiar  din  of  dishes  at  the  commons 
of  Columbia,  as  well  as  at  the  University  of 
California,  serves  to  raise  the  pitch  of  a  poly- 
glot table-talk  that  often  represents  a  dozen 
nationalities.  Last  year  in  American  colleges 
there  were  hundreds  of  undergraduates  of 
alien  speech,  customs,  ideals,  temperaments, 
and  religion.  Among  these  were  a  specially 
important  delegation  of  three  hundred  Chinese 
young  men  who  were  beneficiaries  of  the  Boxer 
indemnity  fund.     These  students   from  for- 

101 


"WflY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

eign  nations  still  further  subdivide  under- 
graduate life  through  their  race  clubs,  soci- 
eties for  learning  English,  special  religious 
conferences,  and  new  studies. 


COLLEGE  TRADITIONS 

College  tradition  adds  its  distinctive  and 
forceful  factor  to  the  campus  life  of  the  under- 
graduate, particularly  in  the  older  seats  of 
learning.  A  good  tradition  makes  it  easy  to 
accomplish  things  worth  while  without  the 
spasmodic  campaigns  that  characterize  many 
younger  institutions.  Students  are  often  more 
zealous  to  uphold  the  ancient  customs  of  their 
college  than  anything  else  connected  with  it. 
The  annual  conflicts  between  freshmen  and 
sophomores  have  become  a  part  of  the  insti- 
tution. Certain  traditional  habits,  often 
humorous,  sometimes  doubtful,  in  character, 
have  grown  up  in  nearly  every  North 
American  college.  An  old  account  of  life 
at  Cambridge  tells  of  the  manner  in  which 
both  occupant  and  furniture  of  a  freshman's 
room  were  menaced  by  a  missile  as  big  as  a 
cantaloupe  that  was  thrown  into  it.    It  was  de- 

102 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

scribed  as  a  transmittendam  (it  went  with  the 
room),  and  was  handed  down  in  some  such 
forcible  manner  from  one  generation  of  fresh- 
men to  another.  The  desire  to  link  the  past 
with  the  present  at  Harvard  is  also  shown  in 
the  custom  of  registering  the  name  of  each  oc- 
cupant on  the  doors  of  certain  old  frame  build- 
ings long  used  as  lodging-houses  by  students. 
The  old  college  pump  has  been  a  traditional 
means  of  grace  to  many  freshmen,  and  the  cus- 
tomary restriction  to  upper  classmen  of  caps, 
canes,  and  pipes  has  added  pugilistic  zest  to 
undergraduate  life. 

College  tradition  is  not  an  unmixed  blessing 
when  it  results  in  provincialism  and  the  loss  of 
that  breadth  of  mind  and  appreciative  sym- 
pathy which  should  characterize  educated  men. 
When  any  undergraduate  body  becomes 
blindly  a  law  unto  itself,  refusing  to  learn 
from  other  institutions ;  when  faculty  and  stu- 
dents take  the  position  that  because  certain 
ideas  have  never  prevailed  at  their  college, 
therefore  they  never  should  and  never  shall 
prevail,  they  show  their  unfitness  for  leader- 
ship in  an  age  of  vast  and  varied  opportunity. 

The  students  of  the  Middle  West  and  the 
103 


/ 

/ 

/ 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

Ear  West  are  more  sensible  of  their  freedom 
from  the  past  than  are  our  Eastern  under- 
graduates. They  realize  that  they  are  at  least 
a  hundred  years  behind  Eastern  colleges  in  the 
dignity  of  their  traditions,  and  they  therefore 
seek  to  crystallize  college  spirit  about  college 
customs;  but  their  customs  do  not  interfere 
with  progress,  as  sometimes  happens  in  the 
East,  and  a  question  is  decided  on  its  merits 
quite  regardless  of  precedent  or  policies.  If 
a  proposition  seems  sensible  and  right,  it  is 
adopted,  despite  its  novelty  or  its  conflict  with 
tradition.  Keeping  close  to  modern  needs, 
those  colleges  have  gone  ahead  and  accom- 
plished things  while  more  conservative  institu- 
tions have  been  leisurely  thinking  about  them. 
It  is  this  audacity  of  spirit,  this  dash  and  action, 
which  endear  to  the  undergraduates  of  the 
West  all  men  of  achievement.  When  among 
them  one  thinks  of  the  old  verse: 

Oh,  prudence  is  a  right  good  thing 
And  those  are  useful   friends, 

Who  never  make  beginnings 
Until  they  see  the  ends, 


104 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

But  now  and  then  give  me  a  man 

And  I  will  make  him  king, 
Just  to  take   the   consequences, 

Just  to  do  the  thing. 

THE  GAIETY  OF  UNDERGRADUATES 

Traditions  are  closely  connected  with  col- 
lege gaiety,  and  gaiety  forms  a  real  part  of 
the  comprehensive  life  of  the  American  stu- 
dent. "Cheerfulness,"  says  Arnold  Bennett, 
"is  a  most  precious  attainment."  The  under- 
graduate cultivates  it  as  an  art,  puts  worry  be- 
hind him,  and  faces  the  world  with  a  laugh. 

About  his  gaiety  there  is  a  kind  of  humor- 
ous bravado.  He  likes  to  defy  the  lightning. 
An  old  graduate  of  Princeton  relates  how,  in 
1857,  when  the  paper  called  The  Rake,  be- 
cause of  its  daring  criticisms,  had  brought  its 
editors  under  the  ban  of  suspension  by  the 
faculty,  the  editors  injected  fun  into  the  dis- 
mal situation  by  printing  the  statement,  "We 
have  authority  for  supposing  that  even  the 
faculty  do  not  cooperate  as  heartily  with  our 
undertaking  as  they  could  and  should." 

At  the  University  of  Michigan  a  professor, 
lecturing  on  electricity,  wished  to  show  that  the 

105 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

fur  of  a  cat  is  raised  by  an  electrical  current. 
He  asked  one  day,  "Will  some  student  bring  a 
cat  to-morrow,  in  order  that  we  may  show  this 
experiment?"  The  next  day  every  one  of  the 
forty  students  entered  the  lecture-room  with  a 
cat  under  his  arm ! 

Mechanical  laws  seem  never  to  baffle  the  col- 
legian in  search  of  gaiety.  Indeed,  when  one 
studies  some  of  the  mysterious  happenings  on 
and  about  the  college  campus,  one  ceases  to 
wonder  at  the  mechanical  triumphs  of  the 
Egyptians.  At  one  college  which  I  visited, 
the  stilly  night  was  disturbed  by  half  a  hun- 
dred students  who,  with  riotous  yells,  ran  a 
two-horse  wagon  back  and  forth  on  an  upper 
story  of  a  college  dormitory,  to  which  place 
they  had  succeeded  in  hoisting  it.  This  oc- 
curred at  midnight,  for  the  delectation  of  three 
hundred  students  and  members  of  the  faculty 
who  were  sleeping  below.  Next  day  the  col- 
lege paper  declared  that  the  president  of  the 
institution  bad  been  seen  at  his  bedside  suppli- 
cating against  earthquakes  and  thunderbolts. 

I  once  visited  a  small  college  where  the 
chapel  exercises  were  abruptly  ended  because 
six  or  eight  barn-yard  fowl  had  been  placed 

106 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

inside  the  pipe-organ.  As  several  hundred 
students  marched  into  the  chapel,  the  old  Ger- 
man professor,  who  was  deaf,  began  to  play 
the  organ.  The  commingled  sounds  that 
issued  from  that  instrument  when  the  levers 
began  to  work  were  described  as  extraordinary. 

Much  of  the  enduring  loyalty  of  college  men 
clings  about  the  memories  of  such  events.  A 
college  president  once  said  to  me  that  some  of 
the  most  important  gifts  to  his  institution 
came  from  men  who  remembered  college  fun 
and  "idlesse"  long  after  time  had  blotted  out 
the  serious  impressions  of  the  classroom.  As 
one  apostle  of  the  easy-going  side  of  student 
days  has  said: 

"There  is  some  chill  and  arid  knowledge  to 
be  found  upon  the  summits  of  formal  and  la- 
borious science;  but  it  is  all  around  about  you, 
and  for  the  trouble  of  looking  that  you  will  ac- 
quire the  warm  and  palpitating  facts  of  life." 

Still,  there  is  the  duty  of  drawing  a  distinct 
line  between  college  fun  and  fundamental  de- 
cency and  good  order.  When  this  line  is 
crossed,  all  the  authority  of  the  faculty  and, 
if  necessary,  the  laws  of  the  land  should  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  offenders.     There 

107 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

should  be  no  dallying  with  undergraduate  law- 
breakers, no  special  exemptions  for  students. 
Reprehensible  and  even  criminal  acts  have  been 
committed  by  college  men  in  the  last  few  years 
which  called  for  severer  punishment  than  seem- 
ingly they  received.  It  is  no  kindness  to  the 
undergraduate  to  overlook  acts  of  dishonesty, 
ruthless  destruction  of  property,  or  dissipated 
license.  Respect  for  property  and  conventions 
should  be  impressed  upon  a  boy  before  he 
reaches  college  age.  It  is  because  lawlessness 
has  been  tolerated  by  parents  in  the  home,  as 
well  as  by  over-lenient  masters  at  boarding- 
school,  that  we  read  continually  of  offenses 
against  common  sense  and  respectability,  com- 
mitted by  persons  of  supposed  cultivation. 
Few  things  are  more  needed  in  American 
life  to-day  than  strengthening  the  respect  for 
discipline  and  lawful  authority. 

COLLEGE  MEN'S  HONOR 

Such  abuses  of  liberty,  as  well  as  nearly  all 
other  college  delinquencies,  can  be  largely  pre- 
vented by  a  consistent  appeal  to  the  under- 
graduate's sense  of  honor.  Recently  I  asked 
the  president  of  a  North  Carolina  college  what 

108 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

he  regarded  as  the  chief  characteristic  of 
American  students.  He  replied  promptly, 
"College  honor."  At  Princeton,  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  at  Amherst,  and  at  many 
other  institutions,  the  honor  system  in  exam- 
inations arranged  and  managed  by  students, 
represents  the  deliberate  intention  of  the  under- 
graduates to  do  the  square  thing.  These 
laws,  which  the  students  voluntarily  impose 
upon  themselves,  are  enforced  more  vigorously 
than  the  rules  of  the  faculty. 

A  few  years  ago  I  visited  a  university  at  a 
time  when  the  entire  undergraduate  body  was 
deeply  stirred  over  a  matter  that  involved  col- 
lege honor.  A  senior  of  high  standing  socially 
and  intellectually,  the  son  of  a  prominent 
family,  high  in  popular  favor,  was  overheard  to 
use  disrespectful  language  to  his  landlady. 
The  senior  was  summoned  before  the  student 
committee  having  charge  of  undergraduate 
affairs,  confronted  with  the  charges,  allowed 
to  make  answer,  and,  being  found  guilty, 
was  asked  to  leave  the  institution.  His  family 
and  friends,  incensed  by  this  demand,  which 
seemed  to  them  both  harsh  and  unjust,  ap- 
pealed to  the  faculty  for  redress.     The  chair- 

109 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

man  of  the  faculty  replied  that  the  matter  was 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  students.  Appli- 
cation was  then  made  to  the  student  commit- 
tee to  present  the  young  man's  side  of  the  ques- 
tion to  the  whole  college.  The  student  council 
readily  acceded  to  this  request,  saying  that 
they  were  perfectly  willing  to  consider  the 
charges  more  at  length,  as  their  only  desire  was 
to  be  absolutely  just.  When  he  went  up  for  a 
new  trial  the  young  man's  family  engaged  a 
lawyer.  The  student  body  also  engaged 
counsel.  The  trial  was  held  in  one  of  the 
largest  halls  in  the  university  town,  and  vir- 
tually the  whole  student  body  sat  through 
the  evening  and  far  into  the  morning  listening 
to  the  presentations  of  both  sides.  A  judge 
who  told  me  of  the  incident  said  that  during 
those  hours,  looking  into  those  student  faces, 
he  did  not  remember  seeing  any  man  change 
his  expression,  but  that  every  one  sat  in  the  at- 
titude of  seeking  only  the  truth.  The  jury, 
which  was  chosen  from  the  faculty  and  from 
impartial  men  in  the  town,  found  that  the 
young  man  had  actually  used  the  words  attrib- 
uted to  him,  and  therefore  pronounced  him 
guilty  of  the  charge. 

110 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

A  few  months  ago  an  incident  occurred  at  a 
Southern  college  that  impressed  me  deeply. 
At  one  of  a  series  of  meetings  which  I  was  hold- 
ing, a  student  rose  and  said  that  he  wished  to 
make  confession  to  the  student  body.  He 
had  recently  won  the  sophomore- junior  debate, 
but  wished  to  confess  that  he  had  gained  it  un- 
fairly. He  had  overheard  his  opponent  re- 
hearsing his  debate  in  an  adjoining  room,  and 
although  he  stopped  his  ears  and  refused  to 
listen,  his  room-mate  took  down  the  points. 
Afterward,  the  debater  said,  the  temptation 
was  so  subtle  that  he  took  the  notes,  arranged 
his  own  debate  accordingly,  and  won.  "But," 
he  said  with  deep  feeling,  "I  stole  it,  and  I  have 
come  to  plead  the  forgiveness  of  the  student 
body." 

Very  early  the  next  morning  a  young  man 
called  at  the  house  where  I  was  being  enter- 
tained, to  tell  me  that  he  was  the  room-mate 
who  had  taken  the  notes  mentioned  in  the  con- 
fession. He,  too,  wished  an  opportunity  to 
speak  to  the  students.  At  the  public  meeting 
that  evening,  before  three  hundred  college 
men,  he  rose  and  told  of  his  all-night  fight  for 
character   on   the   college   campus.     He   de- 

111 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

scribed  the  humiliation  which  he  saw  confront- 
ing him  if  he  should  tell  of  his  part  in  the  dis- 
honorable proceeding,  and  said : 

"I  was  helped  by  a  power  beyond  myself  to 
make  a  clean  breast  of  it.  I  am  here  to  tell 
the  students  that  I,  rather  than  the  man  who 
spoke  last  night,  should  take  the  blame  for 
stealing  that  debate." 

I  do  not  remember  ever  having  witnessed 
such  deep  feeling,  or  heard  such  applause  in 
any  assembly,  as  greeted  that  sturdy  confes- 
sion. It  was  a  triumph  of  college  honor  and 
integrity,  rooted  in  manhood,  conscience,  and 
religion. 

SOCIETY  LIFE  AMONG   UNDERGRADUATES 

But  the  supreme  opportunity  for  the  incul- 
cation and  employment  of  honesty  is  not  re- 
served for  examinations  and  public  presenta- 
tions; it  also  belongs  to  the  complex  social  life 
of  the  colleges,  which  has  become  important. 
The  club-book  of  an  Eastern  university,  for 
example,  records  the  existence  at  that  institu- 
tion of  ninety  different  social  organizations,  the 
object  of  most  of  them  being  to  bring  men  to- 

112 


Amateur  College  Theatricals 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

gether  sociably.  Such  intermingling  is  vital 
for  college  friendship.  It  is  true,  as  former 
Dean  Henry  P.  Wright  of  Yale  has  said,  that, 
to  a  student,  a  friend  is  a  "fellow  whom  you 
know  all  about,  and  still  like,"  and  for  that 
reason  the  social  organizations  which  bring  men 
together  in  an  intimacy  closer  than  is  found 
anywhere  else  are  indispensable  aids  in  the  for- 
mation of  lasting  friendships. 

The  social  groupings  of  college  life  are  also 
important  because  they  give  an  opportunity 
for  concrete  and  tangible  success  through  stu- 
dent leadership.  College  society,  in  fact,  has 
brought  into  being  a  restricted,  but  very  real, 
world,  with  special  laws  and  a  kind  of 
public  opinion  founded  on  student  initiative 
and  sentiment.  Responsibility  and  leadership 
in  college  affairs  have  given  many  an  under- 
graduate the  initial  stir  to  the  qualities  which 
make  him  successful  in  after  life.  These  fra- 
ternal bodies,  democratic,  discriminatingly 
alert  for  the  best  men,  and  usually  emphasiz- 
ing worth  rather  than  birth,  are  vital  not  only 
in  the  discovery  of  individuality,  but  also  in 
their  unique  contribution  to  the  corporate 
strength  and  unity  of  college  life,  \*S 

115 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

COLLEGE  FRATERNITY  LIFE 

The  Greek-letter  society  is  found  at  the 
heart  of  these  undergraduate  social  activities. 
Indeed,  fraternities  have  become  in  many  in- 
stitutions as  much  the  center  of  the  college  it- 
self as  of  college  society.  So  far  as  social  and 
moral  influences  go,  the  character  of  the  fra- 
ternity which  a  young  man  joins  is  quite  as  im- 
portant as  the  college  or  university  he  selects. 
The  fraternity  students  represent  the  "system" 
in  college :  they  choose  athletic  managers,  they 
exert  the  "pull"  which  controls  editorship  upon 
the  college  papers,  they  determine  largely  the 
presidents  of  classes,  and  in  some  cases  the  elec- 
tions to  senior  societies. 

The  membership  of  the  thirty-five  national 
Greek-letter  fraternities  (not  to  mention  a 
hundred  or  more  local  fraternities  or  the  fifty 
fraternities  of  the  professional  schools)  now 
comprises  200,000  undergraduates  and  grad- 
uates. These  figures  do  not  include  the  twenty 
intercollegiate  sororities  that  claim  250  chap- 
ters and  25,000  members.  Three  hundred 
and  seventy  colleges  and  universities  at  pres- 
ent contain  chapters  of  national  Greek-letter 

116 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

fraternities,  and  millions  are  invested  in  the 
buildings  of  these  societies.  An  almanac  for 
1911  ascribes  1013  fraternity-houses  to  Ameri- 
can colleges.  Half  a  million  dollars  is  invested 
in  chapter-houses  at  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan alone.  The  property  of  the  eleven  fra- 
ternities at  Amherst  had  twenty  times  greater 
money  value  than  Yale's  available  funds  in 
1830;  and  the  property  of  the  fraternities  at 
Columbia,  valued  at  a  million  dollars,  are  as 
great  as  the  total  productive  funds  of  all  the 
colleges  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century. 

The  college  fraternity  or  the  college  club  be- 
comes responsible  for  a  large  and  representa- 
tive part  of  the  undergraduate  life  in  America. 
It  is  usually  responsible  for  the  histrionics  in 
university  life,  and  there  is  perhaps  no  literary 
tendency  more  pronounced  in  our  colleges  to- 
day than  that  toward  the  making  of  the  drama. 
Several  important  plays  of  recent  years  may 
be  traced  to  graduates  who  were  members  of 
such  clubs  as  "The  Hasty  Pudding"  of  Har- 
vard and  "The  Mask  and  Wig"  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. At  a  time  when  confessedly  there  is 
a  crying  demand  for  good,  strong  plays  at  the 
theater,  it  is  agreeable  to  hear  that  the  classes 

117 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

of  professors  of  dramatic  literature  are 
crowded. 

Furthermore,  the  fraternity  is  no  longer 
simply  a  debating  society;  it  is  also  a  student- 
home.  There  is  an  increasing  tendency,  es- 
pecially on  the  part  of  state  institutions,  to 
make  it  possible  for  college  fraternities  to 
erect  their  buildings  on  the  campus.  Every 
fraternity-house  is  the  product  of  much 
thought,  liberal  support,  and  often  sacrifice, 
on  the  part  of  influential  alumni.  College  au- 
thorities are  seriously  considering  the  many 
problems  connected  with  these  organizations, 
for  thousands  of  undergraduates  find  their 
homes  in  them  for  four  very  impressionable 
years.  The  general  attitude  of  the  faculties 
is  wisely  not  one  of  repression  or  of  drastic  reg- 
ulation by  rules,  but,  as  President  Faunce  of 
Brown  has  expressed  it,  of  "sympathetic  under- 
standing, constant  consultation,  and  the  en- 
deavor to  enlist  fraternities  in  the  best  move- 
ments in  college  life." 

There  is,  moreover,  a  plain  tendency  on  the 
part  of  members  of  college  fraternities  to  face 
the  dangers  as  well  as  to  enjoy  the  advantages 
connected  with  such  societies.     They  realize 

118 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

that  these  organizations  can  be  effectively  in- 
fluenced only  by  a  leavening  process  within  the 
fraternity  itself,  for  external  pressure  and 
rules  have  never  yet  succeeded  in  forming  or 
changing  student  sentiment.  The  fraternity 
can  establish  manliness  and  decency,  or  sporti- 
ness  and  laziness,  as  its  ideals,  and  these  ideals 
are  clearly  reflected  in  the  membership.  The 
inclination  of  these  bodies  to  assume  definite 
responsibility  for  the  moral  welfare  of  their 
members  is  indicated  by  the  action  of  some  of 
the  old  national  fraternities,  which  have  chosen 
efficient  field-secretaries  to  travel  among  the 
chapters  in  order  to  study  conditions  and  to  as- 
sist in  the  direction,  control,  and  general  bet- 
terment of  fraternity  activities.  The  type  of 
men  selected  for  membership  is  being  more 
carefully  scrutinized.  In  a  considerable  and 
growing  number  of  institutions,  students  are 
not  chosen  for  membership  until  the  end  of  the 
freshman  year;  there  is  thus  needful  oppor- 
tunity on  both  sides  for  more  intelligent  choice. 
More  and  more  the  cooperation  of  fraternity 
alumni  is  being  sought  by  the  authorities. 
These  graduates,  who  are  often  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  fine  houses  of  the  fraternities,  are 

119 


WHY  GOTO  COLLEGE 

justly  called  upon  by  the  college  to  assist  in 
maintaining  proper  regulations  within  them. 
Moreover,  assurance  is  given  that  the  frater- 
nity itself  wishes  to  cooperate  with  the  faculty 
in  securing  a  higher  grade  of  scholarship, 
which  fraternity  life  too  frequently  menaces, 
and  in  demanding  the  reform  of  conditions 
leading  to  delinquency  of  all  kinds.  There  is 
no  police  force  really  effective  for  a  college 
community  but  a  student  police  force,  and  this 
operates  not  by  external  pressure,  but  by  in- 
ternal persuasion. 

A  real  danger  of  the  modern  college  fra- 
ternity lies  in  its  distraction  from  the  real  work 
of  the  college — study  and  the  intellectual  life 
— through  habits  of  indifference,  laziness,  or 
immorality.  The  chapter-house  tends  to  sug- 
gest that  college  work  is  optional,  not  impera- 
tive. "Thou  shalt  not  loaf!"  as  an  eleventh 
commandment,  written  across  the  doorposts 
of  a  fraternity  club-house  in  the  Middle  West, 
is  no  inappropriate  injunction.  The  undue 
and  distressing  waste  of  time  in  inconsequent 
and  foolish  play,  the  inevitable  interruptions, 
the  dissipations  of  social  events,  the  inane  prof- 
ligacy, the  autocracy  of  athletics,  the  feeble 

120 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

conversations  that  "skim  like  a  swallow  over  the 
surface  of  reality" — all  these  are  too  often  the 
doubtful  compensations  received  by  the  college 
man  as  fraternity  privileges. 

"The  modern  world  is  an  exacting  one,"  says 
ex-President  Woodrow  Wilson,  "and  the 
things  that  it  exacts  are  mostly  intellectual." 
One  often  wonders,  in  visiting  the  fraternities 
of  America,  how  large  a  place  this  intellectual 
work  holds  in  college  life.  Was  that  Eastern 
college  professor  justified  in  saying  that  some 
fraternity  men  are  not  unlike  the  old  farmer 
down  East  who  was  usually  to  be  found  in  a 
comfortable  arm-chair  in  the  post-ofBce,  and 
when  asked  what  he  did,  replied,  "I  just  set 
and  think,  and  set  and  think,  and  sometimes  I 
just  set/'  The  fraternity-house  that  becomes 
a  place  to  "set"  rather  than  a  place  to  work  is 
hardly  a  credit  to  a  college  campus.  As  Presi- 
dent Northrop  said  to  some  society  men  at  the 
University  of  Minnesota,  "If  your  fraternity 
is  not  a  place  for  intellectual  and  moral  incite- 
ments, it  is  a  failure,  and  it  must  go  the  way  of 
all  failures." 

Among  other  gifts,  the  American  college 
fraternity  may  justly  be  expected  to  bestow 

121 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

upon  its  members  devoted  friendship,  the 
ability  to  live  successfully  with  other  men,  and 
such  habits  of  application,  industry  and  sobri- 
ety as  develop  ideas  and  character. 


THE  UNDERGRADUATE'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

But  this  hint  at  the  somewhat  free-and-easy 
life  of  the  fraternity  chapter-house  should  not 
leave  the  impression  that  the  American  under- 
graduate is,  as  a  rule,  a  thoughtless  creature  or 
that  he  fails  to  formulate  a  philosophy  of  life. 
Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  remarks,  "There  are 
some  people,  and  I  am  one  of  them,  who  think 
that  the  most  practical  and  important  thing 
about  a  man  is  still  his  view  of  the  universe." 
Certain  beholders  of  collegiate  conditions  have 
evidently  become  acquainted  with  only  those 
students  who  have  thoughtlessly  taken  their 
serious  views,  in  second-hand  fashion,  from 
their  ancestors  or  from  current  opinion. 
These  spectators  have  perhaps  justly  concluded 
that  the  undergraduate  has  no  view  of  life — 
no  view,  at  least,  which  is  complimentary  to 
him. 

Such  an  impression  is  not  general  among 


■    mmsmm 


The  Main  Hall,  University  of  Wisconsin 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

those  who  are  familiar  with  the  inner  working 
of  the  undergraduate  mind  and  have  watched 
the  result  of  his  philosophy  in  practical  works. 
Many  of  the  vital  movements  of  the  time  have 
originated  among  these  seemingly  thoughtless 
college  men.  It  was  in  a  small  room  at  Prince- 
ton, in  the  year  1876,  that  Cleveland  H. 
Dodge,  W.  Earl  Dodge,  and  Luther  D. 
Wishard,  after  earnest  conversation  regarding 
the  moral  and  religious  life  of  the  institution, 
decided  to  send  delegates  to  the  next  year's 
Convention  of  the  International  Committee  of 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations,  held  in 
Louisville,  Kentucky.  This  delegation  pre- 
sented to  the  International  Committee  plans 
for  the  Student  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociation at  Princeton.  Other  groups  of  un- 
dergraduates took  similar  action  both  in 
America  and  in  other  countries,  until  at  pres- 
ent the  World's  Student  Christian  Federation 
includes  148,300  students  and  professors  in  its 
membership.  These  federated  movements 
represent  twenty-one  nations.  In  connection 
with  these  societies  during  the  last  college  sea- 
son 66,000  students  met  regularly  for  Bible 
study. 

125 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

These  associations  at  the  colleges  have  given 
rise  to  many  other  organizations  which  have 
stimulated  the  educated  life  of  the  world. 
The  Student  Volunteer  Movement  for  Foreign 
Missions,  which  originated  in  connection  with 
a  student  conference  at  Mount  Hermon,  Mas- 
sachusetts, in  the  year  1886,  has  been  respon- 
sible for  enlisting  thousands  of  collegians  who 
have  been  sent  by  churches  and  Christian  or- 
ganizations to  serve  in  foreign  lands.  This 
student  missionary  organization  is  also  accom- 
plishing an  educational  work  in  familiarizing 
undergraduates  with  the  social,  political,  and 
religious  conditions  of  foreign  nations.  The 
college  Christian  associations  now  have  163 
graduates  among  their  employed  officers  in  the 
institutions  of  higher  learning  in  North  Amer- 
ica. 

Undergraduate  philosophy  of  life  is  an  evo- 
lution. It  consists  of  three  stages:  the  first  is 
characterized  by  a  sense  of  calamity  or  fear  as 
the  student  leaves  behind  the  observances  and 
conventional  creeds  of  childhood,  held  with  un- 
questioning and  often  unthinking  assent.  He 
begins  to  think  for  himself.  He  enters  an  at- 
mosphere of  thoughtfulness  and  scientific  dis- 

126 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

covery,  an  environment  in  which  facts  come  be- 
fore opinions.  His  first  alarm  is  because  he 
thinks  he  is  losing  his  religion.  He  says,  like 
the  prophet  Micah,  when  the  hostile  Danites 
took  away  his  images,  "Ye  have  taken  away  my 
gods     .     .     .     what  have  I  more?" 

In  the  second  period  of  his  thinking  he 
changes  his  early  ceremonial  god  for  breadth 
of  mind.  He  revels  in  his  impartial  view 
of  men  and  the  universe.  By  turns  he 
calls  himself  a  pantheist,  a  pragmatist, 
or  an  agnostic.  His  religious  position  is  at 
times  summed  up  in  the  description  of  a  young 
college  curate  by  a  bishop  who  said  the  young 
man  arose  in  his  pulpit  with  a  self-confidence 
begotten  of  fancied  wisdom,  saying  to  his  ex- 
pectant hearers :  "Dearly  beloved,  you  must  re- 
pent— as  it  were ;  and  be  converted — in  a  meas- 
ure; or  be  damned — to  a  certain  extent!" 

The  third  stage  of  the  undergraduate's  phi- 
losophy is  usually  in  line  with  constructive  ac- 
tion. He  begins  to  be  interested  in  doing 
something,  and  practice  for  him,  as  for  men 
generally,  helps  to  solve  the  riddle  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  best  test  of  college  theology  or 
college  philosophy  is  its   serviceableness,  its 

127 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

power  to  attach  the  student  to  something  which 
needs  to  be  done,  and  which  he  can  do.  Many 
an  undergraduate  whose  college  course  has 
seemed  an  intellectually  unsettling  period  has 
found  himself  upon  solid  ground  as  soon  as  he 
has  begun  seriously  to  engage  in  the  world's 
work. 

Indeed  a  strikingly  aggressive  social  propa- 
ganda is  now  in  operation  in  the  North  Ameri- 
can colleges.  The  college  student,  like  the 
modern  American,  is  a  practical  being  and  is 
interested  in  securing  practical  results.  His 
first  question  regarding  any  movement  usually 
is,  "What  is  it  doing  that  is  really  worth 
while?"  Recently  a  graduate  of  an  Eastern 
university  was  secured  to  give  his  entire  time 
to  the  study  and  promotion  of  social  service 
in  the  colleges  of  the  United  States  and  Can- 
ada. 

An  example  of  such  service  is  demonstrated 
by  the  social  work  that  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania is  doing  in  connection  with  its  settle- 
ment house  in  Philadelphia,  which  is  owned 
and  conducted  by  the  Christian  Association  of 
the  university.  The  settlement,  erected  in  the 
river-front  district,  immediately  opposite  the 

128 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

university,  at  Lombard  and  Twenty-sixth 
streets,  consists  of  a  group  of  buildings  built 
at  a  cost  of  $60,000;  a  children's  playground 
adjoining  the  house;  an  athletic  field  across  the 
river;  and,  forty  miles  from  Philadelphia,  a 
beautifully  situated  farm  of  sixty-four  acres, 
used  for  a  camp  for  boys  and  girls,  for  mothers 
and  children,  in  the  summer  months.  Every 
year  one  hundred  students  and  members  of  the 
faculty  take  part  in  the  active  service  and  sup- 
port of  the  settlement.  Among  the  activities 
are  the  following :  Boys'  and  girls'  and  adults' 
clubs;  industrial  classes;  athletics;  dispensary; 
modified  milk  station;  visiting  physician;  resi- 
dent nurse;  public  lectures;  entertainments; 
religious  meetings;  social  investigation;  politi- 
cal work ;  and  the  usual  activities  of  a.  play- 
ground, athletic  field,  and  summer  camp. 
Former  residents  and  volunteer  workers  of  the 
settlement  are  scattered  throughout  the  world 
engaging  in  social  and  religious  work.  Four 
are  medical  missionaries  in  China,  one  is  a  mis- 
sionary in  Persia,  another  in  Honolulu,  an- 
other in  South  America,  while  three  are  holding 
prominent  positions  in  social  work  in  this  coun- 
try. 

129 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  SERVICEABLENESS 

Such  works,  with  numerous  other  tendencies 
which  might  be  mentioned  in  the  line  of  unpaid 
and  voluntary  service  for  college  publications, 
musical  organizations,  debating  organizations, 
and  athletics,  lead  one  to  define  the  American 
undergraduate's  philosophy  of  life  as  one  of 
service.  Unlike  the  German  or  Indian,  his 
seriousness  is  not  associated  with  metaphysical 
or  theological  discussion  or  expression.  He 
asks  not  so  much  What?  as  What  for?  His 
aims  belong  to  "a  kingdom  of  ends."  Student 
theory  operates  in  a  real  world — a  world  where 
contact  is  not  so  marked  with  creeds  and  laws 
as  with  virile  movements  and  living  men. 
The  undergraduate  is  enamoured  of  a  gospel 
of  action.  To  him  "deeds  are  mightier  things 
than  words"  are.  His  spirit  slumbers  under 
sermons  and  lectures  upon  dogma  and  descrip- 
tion, but  rises  with  an  heroic  call  to  give  money, 
time,  and  life  for  vital  college  or  world  enter- 
prises. Difficulties  stir  him  as  they  always  stir 
true  men.  He  admires  the  power  that  is 
"caught  in  the  cylinder  and  does  not  escape  in 
the  whistle."    More  and  more  plainly  in  all 

180 


THE  COLLEGE  CAMPUS 

his  undergraduate  and  graduate  work  the 
American  student  is  revealing  his  love  and 
ability  for  that  serviceableness  to  the  state,  to 
the  church,  and  to  industrial  life  which,  though 
often  unpaid  and  unappreciated,  brings  to  the 
servant  a  satisfying  reward  in  the  doing. 

A  few  years  ago  a  Harvard  athlete  played 
in  a  hard  and  exciting  foot-ball  game  against 
Yale.  Toward  the  end  of  the  game,  when  it 
was  nearly  dark,  this  man  was  fairly  hurled 
through  the  Yale  line  in  a  play  that  shortly 
afterward  resulted  in  giving  the  game  to  the 
Cambridge  men.  It  seemed  a  strange  irony 
of  circumstance  that  just  before  time  was  called 
the  heroic  player  was  disqualified.  When  the 
game  was  over  and  the  crimson  men  were 
marching  wildly  about  the  field,  yelling  for 
Harvard  and  carrying  the  foot-ball  players  on 
their  shoulders,  the  man  whose  playing  was 
largely  contributory  to  this  triumph  was  down 
in  the  training-quarters,  almost  alone,  but  with 
the  satisfaction  that,  although  forgotten  by  the 
crowd,  he  had  "played  the  game."  Certain 
alumni,  who  had  seen  this  man's  plucky  but 
unpraised  fight  for  his  Alma  Mater,  sent  to 
him  these  words  of  Kipling: 

131 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

And  only  the  Master  shall  praise  us,  and  only  the  Mas- 
ter shall  blame; 

And  no  one  shall  work  for  money,  and  no  one  shall 
work  for  fame, 

But  each  for  the  joy  of  the  working.     .     .     • 

We  must  admit  that  the  undergraduate's 
philosophy  of  life  may  be  obscure  at  times, 
even  to  himself;  that  it  is  as  subtle  and  evasive 
as  the  moods  of  youth;  and  that  its  expression 
is  as  cosmopolitan  as  nationality,  and  as  varied 
as  human  nature.  For  some  students,  too,  we 
must  conclude  that  trivialities  and  immoralities 
bury  far  out  of  sight  the  true  meaning  of  col- 
lege training  and  life-work;  but  in  other  stu- 
dents, and  these  are  the  majority,  underneath 
his  curriculum  and  his  customs,  his  light-heart- 
edness,  his  loves,  and  his  seeming  listlessness, 
one  may  discern  the  real  American  under- 
graduate, energetic,  earnest,  expectant,  and 
strenuously  eager  for  those  great  campaigns 
of  his  day  and  generation  in  which  the  priceless 
guerdon  is  the  "joy  of  the  working." 


182 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO 
COLLEGE 


IV 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 


^T>  ECENTLY  I  attended  the  commence-^ 
XTv  ment  exercises  at  one  of  our  large  uni- 
versities. As  undergraduates  and  friends  of 
the  graduating  class  were  gathered  in  a  large 
church  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  procession, 
in  a  seat  directly  in  front  of  me  sat  a  middle- 
aged  woman  and  a  man  whose  appearance  and 
nervous  expectation  drew  general  attention. 
The  man's  clothes  were  homely  and  of  coun- 
try cut.  His  face  was  deeply  lined,  and  wore 
the  tan  of  many  summers.  I  noted  his  hard, 
calloused  hand  resting  on  the  back  of  the  seat 
as  he  half  rose  to  look  at  the  door  through 
which  the  seniors  were  to  enter.  The  woman 
by  his  side  was  a  quiet,  sympathetic  person  to 
whom  a  phrase  from  Barrie  would  be  appli- 
cable: she  had  a  "mother's  face." 

While  many  eyes  were  turned  toward  the 
old  couple,  the  commencement  procession  en- 

135 


& 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

tered  the  church.  The  two  seemed  scarcely 
to  notice  the  dignitaries  who  led  the  proces- 
sion, but  their  eyes  were  straining  to  catch  the 
first  glimpse  of  the  seniors.  At  least  half  of 
the  audience  were  now  interested  in  this  father 
and  mother.  The  latter  suddenly  placed  both 
hands  upon  the  man's  arm.  Her  face  beamed, 
and  an  answering  light  appeared  in  the  face 
of  a  strong  young  man  who  marched  near  the 
head  of  the  seniors.  That  day  some  persons 
in  the  audience  heard  only  listlessly  the  com- 
mencement speeches.  Instead,  they  were  pic- 
turing the  couple  back  on  an  ^upland  farm  of 
New  England,  dedicating  their  lives  to  the 
task  of  giving  their  boy  the  advantages  which 
they  had  never  received,  and  which  they  must 
have  felt  would  separate  him  forever  from 
their  humble  life  and  surroundings.  It  had 
been  no  easy  path  up  which  this  pair  had 
struggled  to  the  attainment  of  that  ambition. 
This  was  the  day  of  their  reward.  All  the 
gray  days  behind  were  lost  in  the  radiance  of 
pride  and  love.  The  father  was  full  of  joy 
because  he  had  had  the  privilege  of  working 
for  the  boy,  while  to  the  mother  it  was  enough 
that  she  had  borne  him. 

136 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

Such  scenes  are  still  frequent  in  commence- 
ment time,  and  they  are  significant.  Does  it 
really  pay  to  send  boys  to  college  in  America? 
Is  the  game  worth  the  candle?  Is  the  con- 
temptuous notice  placed  by  Horace  Greeley 
in  his  newspaper  office  still  applicable:  "No 
college  graduates  or  other  horned  cattle  need 
apply"?  We  can  probably  take  for  granted, 
as  we  consider  the  vast  expenditure  of  money 
and  time  and  men  in  the  cause  of  American 
education,  that  the  people  of  the  country  are 
believing  increasingly  in  the  value  of  college 
training;  but  to  many  persons  there  arises  the 
question,  To  what  college  shall  we  send  our 
young  hopeful?  There  is  even  a  inore  basic 
question  Why  go  to  college  at  all?  J 

Rather  than  theorize  on  this  stfbject,  I 
asked  one  hundred  recent  graduates  of  North 
American  colleges  to  tell  me  what  decided 
their  choice  of  an  institution,  the  chief  values 
derived  from  their  college  course,  and  the  ef- 
fect of  college  training  upon  their  life-work. 
The  following  is  a  summary  of  the  testimony 
thus  obtained: 


1ST 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

GRADUATE    TESTIMONY    CONCERNING    COLLEGE 

I.     What  were  the  reasons  that  led  you  to  choose 
your  college? 

Financial  reasons 40 

Influence  of  friends  or  relatives     .      .      .18 
Type  of  the  alumni  .      .      .      ...      .32 

Standing  of  the  institution 10 

II.     What  do  you  consider  the  most  important  val- 
ues received  from  your  college  course? 

Broader  views  of  life 21 

Friendships  formed 18 

Training  or  ^ability  to  think      ....      7 
General   education  as   foundation  for  life- 
work       11 

Influence  of  professors 36 

Technical  training 7 

III.  In  the  light  of  your  experience,  what  would 
you  suggest  to  a  boy  relative  to  the  kind  of 
preparatory  school  to  choose? 

High  school  or  public  school     .      .      .      .45 

Academy  or  private  school 33 

A  school  emphasizing  athletics  j      .   22 

IV.  Did  your  college  training  decide  your  life- 
work? 

Decision  before  going  to  college     ...   32 

Decision  during  college ,.38 

Decision  after  graduation 2 

Not  yet  fully  decided 28 

The  values  of  a  college  course  are  strikingly 
138 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

presented  by  the  following  answers:  A  Johns 
Hopkins  man  attributes  to  his  university  "a 
desire  for,  search  after,  and  acceptance  of  the 
truth  regardless  of  the  consequences."  A  re- 
cent alumnus  of  Boston  University  says:  "I 
learned  to  have  a  far  broader  view  of  what 
teaching  (my  profession)  really  is.  When  I 
entered  college  I  regarded  it  as  a  process  of 
instilling  a  knowledge  of  facts  in  a  young  per- 
son's mind;  when  I  was  graduated  I  knew  that 
this  was  a  very  small  part,  merely  a  means  to 
the  great  end — the  development  of  person- 
ality." A  graduate  of  the  University  of 
Georgia  says  that  his  college  course  meant  to 
him  "a  self-unfoldment,  a  diversity  of  inter- 
ests in  life,  a  growth  of  ideals,  of  purposes, 
and  of  judgment;  strong  convictions  and 
friendships."  A  student  from  the  School  of 
Mines  in  Colorado  considers  the  chief  value  of 
his  college  training  was  the  giving  him  "a 
vision  of  a  life-work  instead  of  a  job";  a  grad- 
uate of  the  University  of  Louisiana  writes 
that  the  chief  value  to  him  was  "a  realization 
that  I  was  worth  as  much  as  the  average  man" ; 
while  an  alumnus  of  Vanderbilt  University 
said  that  his  course  gave  him  "the  feeling  of 

139 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

equality  and  of  opportunity  to  do  things  and 
be  something  along  with  other  men.  It  has 
meant,  perhaps,  a  greater  chance  to  do  my 
best." 

CHOOSING  A  COLLEGE 

The  choice  of  a  college,  according  to  this 
testimony,  is  largely  dependent  upon  one  of 
three  things, — the  location  of  the  institution 
(involving  expense),  the  influence  of  friends 
or  relatives,  and  the  advantages  the  institu- 
tion may  offer  for  special  training.  The  se- 
lection of  the  college,  however,  is  not  so  im- 
portant as  formerly.  Every  prosperous  in- 
stitution now  gives  sufficient  opportunity  for 
the  acquirement  of  knowledge  and  training. 
Apart  from  the  prestige  which  the  name  of  a 
large  and  well-known  university  or  college 
gives  to  its  graduates  in  after  life,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  values  imparted  by  scores  of 
American  institutions  is  not  considerable. 
There  are  at  least  a  hundred  institutions  in 
America  sufficiently  well  equipped  to  give  a 
boy  the  foundation  of  mental  training  that  a 
college  education  is  intended  to  supply. 
Their  libraries   are   filled   with   books;   their 

140 


Blair  Arch,  Princeton  University 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

laboratories  contain  expensive  and  elaborate 
modern  appliances;  their  gymnasiums  are 
preeminent  in  equipment;  their  instructors 
are  drawn  from  the  best  scholars  in  the  coun- 
try and  also  from  the  finishing  schools  of  Eu- 
rope ;  the  spirit  of  athletics  and  undergraduate 
leadership  are,  as  a  rule,  strongly  emphasized, 
while  the  fraternity  and  social  systems  afford 
rare  opportunities  for  friendship.  Tempta- 
tions and  college  evils  vary  comparatively  lit- 
tle in  different  institutions. 

The  advantages  of  contact  and  the  acquire- 
ment of  experience  through  the  laboratory  of 
a  big  city  institution  are  frequently  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  close  fellowship  and 
the  lack  of  distractions  in  a  small  country  col- 
lege. It  is  true  that  the  investigators  of  the 
Carnegie  Foundation  found  a  large  variation 
in  the  amount  of  money  expended  by  different 
institutions  to  educate  a  student.  It  is  my  be- 
lief, after  visiting  more  than  five  hundred  in- 
stitutions in  North  America,  that  the  quality 
of  instruction  in  any  one  of  these  institutions 
of  the  first  grade  does  not  vary  sufficiently  to 
render  the  choice  of  a  college  on  the  ground  of 
educational  advantages  a  matter  of  great  mo- 

143 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

ment.  The  values  which  the  small  college 
loses  from  inferior  equipment  are  usually  off- 
set by  the  more  direct  access  of  the  student  to 
the  personality  of  the  teacher,  and  often  by 
closer  friendships  with  fellow-students. 

Indeed,  educational  results  are  not  always 
commensurate  with  material  advantages.  As 
President  Garfield  said,  a  man  like  Mark 
Hopkins  on  one  end  of  a  bench  and  a  student 
on  the  other  end  is  still  the  main  essential  of 
a  college.  Many  years  ago  Henry  Clay  vis- 
ited Princeton,  and  was  asked  by  President 
McLean  (Johnnie,  as  he  was  familiarly  and 
popularly  called)  to  sit  down  in  the  presi- 
dent's study.  The  furniture  was  not  elabo- 
rate in  those  days,  nor  did  it  consist  of  the 
most  solid  material.  Mr.  Clay  sat  down,  and 
the  rickety  old  chair  which  was  proffered  him 
sank  beneath  his  weight.  The  statesman, 
rising  from  the  floor,  said  solemnly,  "Dr.  Mc- 
Lean, I  hope  that  the  other  chairs  of  this  in- 
stitution are  on  a  more  permanent  founda- 
tion." Indeed,  the  foundation  of  learning  in 
those  days  was  laid  upon  the  personality  of 
great  teachers  who,  like  Dr.  McLean,  had  per- 
sonal contact  with  the  students,  making  up  in 

144 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

individual  interest  what  was  lacking  in  ma- 
terial equipment. 

It  is  important  that  the  student  should 
choose  instructors  quite  as  carefully  as  insti- 
tutions. What  a  man  selects  when  he  gets  to 
college — his  studies,  his  teachers,  and  his 
friends — will  prove  far  more  vital  to  him  than 
the  institution  he  happens  to  choose. 

IDEALS  JOINED  TO  ACTION 

LWhether  in  college  or  out  in  the  world,  the 
important  thing  is  that  college  gives  an  op- 
portunity not  only  for  the  acquirement  of 
knowledge,  but  also  for  the  matching  of  that 
knowledge  against  real  problems^  Some- 
thing definitely  good  is  derived  from  new  ad- 
justments. Education  can  never  be  com- 
pleted at  home.  The  college  boy  returns  to 
his  old  home  with  new  reverence,  with  a  new 
conception  of  its  meaning.  He  has  secured  a 
vision  that  enriches  and  liberates  by  getting 
in  touch  with  universal  interests.  He  has  got^ 
ten  out  of  himself  into  the  life  of  others^^^ 

College  brings  together  ideas  and  action. 
It  is  the  practice-ground  for  honor  and  square- 

145 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

dealing. ;  A  championship  base-ball  game  was 
playecTrecently  between  Wesleyan  and  Wil- 
liams at  Williamstown.  This  game  was  the 
last  one  of  a  series,  and  it  was  to  decide  which 
college  should  hold  the  championship  for  the 
coming  year.  The  tension  was  naturally 
great.  At  the  end  of  the  seventh. inning  the 
score  stood  1  to  0  in  favor  of  Wesleyan. 
The  last  Williams  man  at  the  bat  knocked  a 
slow  "grounder"  to  the  short-stop.  In  throw- 
ing it  to  first  base,  he  drove  it  so  high  that  the 
first  baseman,  in  attempting  to  get  it,  stepped 
about  an  inch  off  the  base.  The  umpire 
called  the  man  out,  but  the  Wesleyan  first 
baseman,  going  up  to  the  umpire,  said,  "That 
man  was  not  out."  Williams  finally  won 
that  day,  but  Wesleyan  had  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  their  man  had  "played  the 
game." 

TRAINING  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

One  of  the  chief  functions  of  the  American 
college  is  to  discover  the  man  in  the  student,., 
and  to  train  him  for  citizenship  and  public 
service.     President    Hadley   of   Yale   points 
out  the  fact  that  of  the  twenty-six  presidents 

146 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

of  the  United  States,  seventeen  were  college 
men,  and  of  these  seventeen,  fourteen  were 
graduates  of  the  old-fashioned  classical  col- 
leges. Grant  was  a  West  Point,  man,  Mon- 
roe and  McKinley  left  college  before  the  end 
of  their  junior  year,  one  to  go  to  the  army,  and 
one  to  teach  school.  This  contribution  of  in- 
dividual leadership  to  a  nation  seems  to  be 
proper  and  fitting,  as  Dr.  Hadley  says: 

If  a  college  man  has  used  the  opportunities  offered 
by  the  faculty,  he  has  acquired  a  wide  knowledge  of  his- 
tory and  a  broad  view  of  public  affairs.  If  he  has  util- 
ized the  opportunities  offered  by  his  fellow-students,  he 
has  acquired  the  democratic  spirit,  has  gotten  a  grip 
upon  public  opinion,  and  has  had  considerable  experi- 
ence in  dealing  with  a  large  variety  of  men.  All  these 
things  give  him  an  advantage  in  the  race,  and  statistics 
show  that  he  makes  good  use  of  this  advantage. 

This  power  of  the  American  college  to  de- 
velop individual  initiative  and  leadership  has 
been  decidedly  enhanced  in  recent  years.  The 
college  in  the  United  States  has  gradually  de- 
veloped from  a  quasi-family  institution  for 
growing  school-boys  to  a  small  world  of  wide, 
voluntary  opportunity  for  young  men.     There 

147 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

is  a  decided  difference  between  American  un- 
dergraduate life  to-day  and  that  of  a  century 
ago,  or  even  of  fifty  years  ago.  Then  boys 
were  graduated  at  eighteen  or  nineteen  years 
of  age,  and  they  were  under  the  watchful  eye 
of  presidents,  professors,  and  tutors,  who  were 
in  loco  parentis.  The  earlier  period  was  a  pe- 
riod of  flogging  and  fagging  and  "freshmen 
servitude  rules."  Indeed,  the  age  was  one  of 
black-and-blue  memories  derived  from  those 
educational  lictors  who  with  their  rods  made 
deeper  impressions  than  all  the  Roman  Caesars. 
Freshmen  were  forbidden  to  wear  hats  in  the 
president's  or  professors'  dooryards  or  within 
ten  yards  of  a  president,  eight  rods  of  a  pro- 
fessor, or  five  of  a  tutor.  These  young  men 
were  forbidden  to  run  in  the  college  yard  or 
up  or  down  stairs  or  to  call  to  any  one  through 
a  college  window.  Seniors  had  the  power  to 
regulate  the  dress  and  the  play  of  underclass 
members.  In  those  early  days  fines  and  pen- 
alties for  misdemeanors  ran  from  half  a 
penny  up  to  three  shillings,  while  sophomores 
had  their  ears  boxed  before  the  assembled  col- 
lege by  the  president  or  a  member  of  the  fac- 
ulty.    The  conclusion  of  the  college  prayer 

148 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

indicated  the  enforced  humility  of  students  in 
those  days:  "May  we  perform  faithfully  our 
duties  to  our  superiors,  our  equals,  and  our 
inferiors." 

American  college  life  had  its  rise  in  New 
England  institutions  presided  over  by  rigor- 
ous Puritans  whose  hands  were  as  hard  as 
their  heads,  who  believed  in  total  depravity 
and  original  sin,  and  who  held  the  young 
sternly  to  account  for  any  remissness.  In 
those  early  days  student  community  life  dif- 
fered little  from  student  home  life;  both  failed 
dismally  to  develop  initiative  or  individual  re- 
sponsibility. They  were  characterized  by 
strict  authority  on  the  part  of  the  parent  and 
teacher,  and  ingenious  attempts  to  outwit  this 
authority  on  the  part  of  the  young.  It  was 
this  conception  of  the  college  which  led  the 
Massachusetts  legislature  to  give  the  Harvard 
faculty  authority  to  inflict  corporal  punish- 
j>  ment  upon  Harvard  students.  At  that  time 
it  was  easy  for  a  student  to  determine  his  life- 
work,  for  the  great  majority  of  boys  either 
entered  the  ministry,  or  studied  law  or  medi- 
cine. The  whole  college  living  was  simple 
and  homogeneous. 

149 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

GOVERNMENT  BY   UNDERGRADUATES 

Existence  in  the  modern  American  college 
is  quite  another  thing.  In  the  college  itself 
there  has  arisen  an  interminable  round  of 
activities  which  make  demands  on  the  talents 
and  abilities  of  students.  Managerial,  civic, 
social,  religious,  athletic,  and  financial  leader- 
ship is  exemplified  in  almost  all  colleges.  Un- 
dergraduate leadership  is  the  most  impressive 
thing  in  college  life.  One  reason  for  the 
sway  of  athletics  over  students  exists  in  the 
fact  that  through  these  exercises  the  student 
body  recognizes  real  leadership.  Loyalty  to 
it  is  repeatedly  seen.  At  a  small  college  the 
students  may  elect  their  best  pitcher  as  the 
president  of  the  senior  class;  their  best  jumper 
for  the  secretary;  and,  regardless  of  the  sub- 
tlety of  the  humor,  may  choose  their  best  run- 
ner for  the  treasurer  of  the  class.  The  presi- 
dent of  another  college  has  estimated  that  in 
his  institution  the  regular  college  activities 
outside  of  the  curriculum  reached  a  grand  to- 
tal of  twenty-seven,  and  included  everything 
from  the  glee-club  leader  to  the  chairman  of 
an  old-clothes  committee.     The  dean  of  an- 

150 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

other  institution  who  felt  this  overwhelming 
change  in  student  affairs  is  quoted  as  recom- 
mending "a  lightening  of  non-academic  de- 
mands upon  the  students." 

A  college  man  is  surrounded,  therefore, 
with  ample  opportunity  for  individual  devel- 
opment. His  habits  and  his  executive  abilities 
are  considered  quite  as  important  as  his 
"marks"  when  the  final  honors  are  awarded. 
In  short,  the  real  government  of  our  large 
North  American  institutions  is  to-day  in  the 
hands  of  the  students,  however  much  the  fac- 
ulty may  think  that  they  wield  the  scepter. 
Honor  systems,  athletics,  college  journalism, 
fraternity  life,  self-support,  curriculum,  sem- 
inars, unrestrained  electives,  student  re- 
searches, and  laboratory  methods — all  these 
are  signs  of  the  new  day  of  student  individ- 
ualism. The  parental  form  of  government  is 
less  popular;  the  self-government  idea  is  now 
the  slogan  in  student  life.  The  dogmatic  col- 
lege president  whom  I  met  recently  in  a  West- 
ern State  who  insisted  that  in  his  college  there 
shall  be  no  fraternities  or  no  athletics  is 
marching  among  the  belated  leaders  of  modern 
education.     Meanwhile    embryonic    statesmen 

151 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

and  railroad  managers  are  discovering  them- 
selves and  their  life-work  in  the  society  and 
politics  of  undergraduate  days.  In  the  ninety 
per  cent,  of  his  time  which  it  is  estimated  the 
American  undergraduate  spends  outside  of  his 
recitations,  there  is  increasingly  the  tendency 
to  make  the  college  a  practice-ground  for  the 
development  of  personal  enterprise,  individu- 
ality, and  efficiency. 


LEARNING  TO  THINK 

At  least  twelve  college  presidents  have  said 
to  me  during  the  last  year  that  in  their  judg- 
ment the  chief  advantage  of  a  college  course 
is  learning  to  think.  It  has  been  stated  by 
Dr.  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie  that  to  Ameri- 
cans no  conquests  are  possible  save  those 
which  are  won  by  superiority  of  ideas.  Pro- 
fessor George  H.  Palmer  tells  an  anecdote  of 
a  Harvard  graduate  who  came  back  to  Cam- 
bridge and  called  upon  him  to  express  his 
gratitude  for  certain  help  which  had  come  to 
him  in  Professor  Palmer's  classroom,  and 
which  had  directly  influenced  his  life.  The 
professor,   naturally  elated,  hastened  to  in- 

152 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

quire  what  particular  remark  had  so  influenced 
the  young  man's  career.  The  graduate  re- 
plied: "You  told  us  one  day  that  John  Locke 
insisted  on  clear  ideas.  These  two  words 
have  been  transforming  elements  in  my  life 
and  work." 

The  colleges  liberate  every  year  a  tremen- 
dous vital  force,  which  is  a  prodigious  energy. 
It  may  drive  men  aimlessly  into  all  kinds  of 
trifling,  display,  and  doubtfully  acquired  pos- 
sessions, or  it  may  be  harnessed  to  clear  ideas 
and  sturdy  convictions  on  the  great  subjects 
of  nationalism,  industrialism,  and  enlighten- 
ment through  schools  and  art  and  literature 
and  religion.  Education  in  the  fullest  mean- 
ing of  the  term  is  the  source  and  secret  of 
American  success.  Some  of  our  colleges  are 
older  than  the  nation.  Harvard  was  founded 
in  1636,  William  and  Mary  in  1693,  Yale  in 
1701,  Princeton  in  1746,  all  before  our  dis- 
tinctively national  life  began.  The  colleges 
are  the  training  centers  of  the  nation's  life, 
and  to  the  trained  men  of  any  nation  belong 
increasingly  the  opportunities  and  the  prizes 
of  public  life.  Bismarck  was  sagaciously 
prophetic  when  he  said  that  one-third  of  the 

153  c- — ' 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

students  of  Germany  died  because  of  over- 
work, one-third  were  incapacitated  for  leader- 
ship through  dissipation,  and  the  other  third 
ruled  Germany.  The  future  welfare  of  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  is  in  the  hands  of  the  men 
who  are  being  trained  by  the  schools  for  serv- 
ice and  public  leadership.  The  power  of 
leadership  is  developed  in  part  at  least  by  the 
expression  of  ideas  in  writing  and  speaking. 
President  Eliot  is  quoted  as  saying  that  the 
superior  effectiveness  of  some  men  lies  not  in 
their  larger  stock  of  ideas,  but  in  their  greater 
power  of  expression.  Many  a  student  has 
learned  to  give  expression  to  his  ideas  and  con- 
victions, and  many  an  editor  has  found  his  vo- 
cation, by  writing  for  the  college  journals. 

COLLEGE  JOURNALISM 

But  the  condition  of  college  journalism  at 
present  does  not  confer  high  honor  on  the 
American  undergraduate  or  on  American  col- 
leges. When  we  look  beyond  the  college 
daily,  we  find  literary  periodicals  nearly  at  a 
standstill  as  to  funds  and  ideas.  In  the  Mid- 
dle West  especially,   the  editors  of  literary 

154 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

journals  spend  a  good  part  of  their  time  in 
drumming  up  delinquent  subscribers.  The 
principal  activity  manifested  by  many  a  col- 
lege literary  magazine  is  to  start  and  to  stop. 
They  resemble  the  ephemeral  Edinburgh  uni- 
versity magazine,  described  by  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson:  "It  ran  four  months  in  undis- 
turbed obscurity  and  died  without  a  gasp." 
To  the  modern  era  of  literary  productiveness 
the  college  man,  at  least  while  in  college, 
seems  to  be  a  comparatively  small  contributor. 
The  best  men  are  needed  to  make  college  jour- 
nalism popular,  for  deep  within  most  students' 
hearts  is  a  love  for  real  literature;  as  one  stu- 
dent said  recently,  "Many  a  man  is  found 
reading  classic  literature  on  the  sly."  It  may 
seem  to  an  outsider  that  the  student  usually 
prefers  his  heroes  to  be  visible  and  practical, 
jumping  and  fighting  about  on  the  athletic 
field,  much  as  certain  persons  prefer  to  hear  a 
big  orchestra,  the  players  in  which  can  be  seen 
sawing  and  blowing  and  perspiring,  rather 
than  to  listen  to  mysterious,  sweet,  but  unseen 
music.  Some  day  strong  college  leaders  will 
rise  up  to  champion  college  journalism  and 
college  reading  as  to-day  they  fight  for  ath- 

157 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

letics.     Then  college  sentiment  will  make  pop- 
ular the  pen  and  the  book. 

When  book-life  is  as  popular  as  play-life, 
college  conversation  will  have  new  point;  the 
fraternity  man  will  be  able  to  spend  an  hour 
away  from  the  "fellows"  and  the  rag-time 
piano,  and  the  docile  professor,  starting  out 
reluctantly  to  visit  his  students,  will  not  need 
to  pray  "Make  me  a  child  again  just  for  to- 
night!" as  he  immolates  himself  for  a  long, 
dreary  evening  trying  to  smile  and  talk  wisely 
of  college  politics  and  base-ball  averages. 

A  NEW   REALISM   IN   LITERATURE 

How  is  the  undergraduate  to  be  interested 
in  writing?  How  can  college  journalism  be 
made  to  take  a  real  hold  on  the  undergradu- 
ate's life?  One  might  answer,  present  litera- 
ture and  writing  in  an  interesting  manner, 
bring  out  the  humanity  in  it;  for,  above  all, 
the  undergraduate  is  intensely  human.  New 
college  ideals  and  interests  have  been  born, 
and  have  grown  up  in  a  new  age  of  literary 
aspiration  and  method.  The  times  demand 
literature  instinct  with  human  interest,  vital 

158 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

with  reality.  We  may  quarrel  with  the  type; 
we  may  call  it  vulgar  and  yellow  and  thin  and 
realistic,  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  the  lit- 
erary temper  of  the  day;  and  there  are  those 
whose  opinions  are  worthy  of  consideration 
who  believe  that  this  new  realism  in  literature 
is  by  no  means  to  be  treated  lightly,  even  in 
comparison  with  the  poetic  and  stately  form 
of  Elizabethan  letters. 


BOOKS  AND  THE  UNDERGRADUATE 

The  opportunity  offered  for  cultivating  ac- 
quaintance with  good  books  is  not  the  least 
reason  for  spending  four  years  in  a  college  at- 
mosphere. In  the  year  1700,  when  William 
and  Mary  were  on  the  throne  of  England, 
James  Pierpont  selected  eleven  trustees,  nine 
of  whom  were  graduates  of  Harvard,  who,  it 
is  recorded,  met  at  Branford,  Connecticut. 
Each  of  the  eleven  brought  a  number  of  books, 
and,  laying  them  on  the  table,  said,  "I  give 
these  books  for  the  foundation  of  a  college  in 
this  colony."  This  was  the  early  foundation 
of  Yale.  The  influence  of  such  foundations 
upon  the  ideals  of  American  students  has  been 

159 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

considerable.  Many  a  man  has  discovered  in 
college  what  Thackeray  meant  when  he  wrote 
to  his  mother  in  1852,  "I  used,  you  know,  to 
hanker  after  Parliament,  police  magistracies, 
and  so  forth;  but  no  occupation  I  can  devise 
is  so  profitable  as  that  which  I  have  at  my 
hand  in  that  old  inkstand."  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson — and  who  can  forget  him  in  think- 
ing of  books? — said  twenty  years  after  his 
school-days,  "I  have  really  enjoyed  this  book 
as  I — almost  as  I  used  to  enjoy  books  when  I 
was  going  twenty  to  twenty-three;  and  these 
are  the  years  for  reading.  Books,"  he  contin- 
ued, "were  the  proper  remedy:  books  of  vivid 
human  import,  forcing  upon  the  minds  of 
young  men  the  issues,  pleasures,  business,  im- 
portance, and  immediacy  of  that  life  in  which 
they  stand;  books  of  smiling,  or  heroic  temper, 
to  excite  or  to  console;  books  of  a  large. design, 
shadowing  the  complexity  of  that  game  of  con- 
sequences to  which  we  all  sit  down,  the  hanger- 
back  not  least." 

HOW  TO  INTEREST  STUDENTS  IN  GOOD  READING 

Some  critics  tell  us  that  the  undergraduate 
160 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

of  to-day  reads  only  his  required  books,  and 
talks  nothing  but  athletics.  One  gets  the  im- 
pression that  the  average  college  man  feels 
about  his  prescribed  work  in  literature  much 
as  D.  G.  Rossetti  felt  about  his  father's  heavy 
volumes.  "No  good  for  reading."  The 
fault  is  not  wholly  with  the  undergraduate. 
There  is  need  for  a  change  of  method  in  inter- 
esting students  in  books.  Too  early  special- 
ization has  frustrated  the  student's  literary 
tendencies.  College  men  are  forced  into 
"original  research"  before  they  know  the 
meaning  of  the  word  bibliography.  They 
rarely  read  enough  of  any  one  great  author  to 
enter  into  real  friendship  with  him.  Class- 
room study  is  often  microscopic.  Literature 
is  made  easy  for  the  student  by  the  innumer- 
able sets  of  books  giving  dashes  of  the  world's 
best  literature,  and  chosen  from  an  utterly 
different  point  of  view  than  the  student  would 
take  were  he  to  make  his  own  choice,  thus  often 
prejudicing  him  against  an  author  whom  he 
might  otherwise  have  loved. 

Grammatical  and  syntactical  details  too 
often  obstruct  the  path  to  the  heart  of  classical 
education.     A  student  in  one  of  our  colleges 

161 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

had  read  the  first  six  books  of  Vergil's  iEneid 
in  a  preparatory  school,  and  when  his  father 
asked  him  what  it  was  about,  answered,  "I 
had  n't  thought  about  that."  The  real  charm 
and  interest  of  this  classic  had  entirely  es- 
caped him.  It  had  been  buried  beneath  a 
mountain  of  philology.  When  we  fail  to 
make  the  student  realize  that  the  best  litera- 
ture of  the  world  is  interesting,  why  should 
we  wonder  that  the  student's  literary  realm  is 
invaded  by  the  pseudo-psychological  novel, 
the  humanly  human  though  indelicate  me- 
moirs which  tend  frequently  to  keep  the  mind 
in  the  low  and  morbid  levels? 

Emphasis  is  needed  on  a  few  great  books, 
not  upon  everything.  The  student  is  often 
discouraged  by  long  lists  of  books,  and  it  fre- 
quently happens  that  he  reads  without  assim- 
ilating. A  college  friend  of  mine  became  an 
example  of  devotion  to  Bacon's  injunction 
about  reading  until  one  becomes  a  "full  man." 
He  was  literally  full  to  the  brim  and  running 
over  with  reading.  He  rarely  laid  down  his 
books  long  enough  to  prepare  for  his  course 
lectures;  he  certainly  never  stopped  long 
enough  to  think  about  what  he  had  read.     His 

162 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

chief  delight  was  in  recounting  the  titles  of 
the  books  he  had  consumed  in  a  given  period. 
He  was  something  like  Kipling's  traveler  in 
India,  who  spent  his  time  gazing  intently  at 
the  names  of  the  railway  stations  in  his 
Baedeker.  When  the  train  rushed  through 
the  station  he  would  draw  a  line  through  the 
name,  saying  in  a  satisfied  manner,  "I've  done 
that." 

The  undergraduate's  reading  may  be  made 
pleasurable  instead  of  being  a  painful  duty. 
Books  ought  to  open  new  rooms  in  his  house 
of  thought,  start  new  trains  of  ideas  and  ac- 
tion, help  him  to  find  his  own  line,  give  just 
views  of  the  nation's  history  and  destinies,  im- 
part a  mental  tone,  and  give  a  real  taste  for 
literature,  inspired  by  intellectual  curiosity. 
College  reading  should  also  awaken  the  soul 
of  the  student  and  attach  his  faith  to  the  loy- 
alties of  life.  A  foot-ball  coach  said  to  me 
recently  that  his  team  was  defeated  in  the  last 
half  of  the  game  because  of  a  lack  of  physical 
reserve.  His  men  were  equal,  if  not  superior, 
to  the  other  team  in  their  technic,  they  fol- 
lowed the  signals,  but  they  had  not  trained 
long  enough  to  secure  the  physical  stamina 

163 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

which  is  always  an  element  of  success  in  the 
last  half  of  the  game.  Good  reading  is  good 
training.  Good  books  give  mental  and  spir- 
itual reserve.  They  fill  the  reservoirs  of  the 
mind  and  heart  with  the  kind  of  knowledge 
that  arouses,  sustains,  and  steadies  a  man  in 
a  crisis.  The  best  books  assure  power  in  the 
right  direction.  A  student  whose  mind  is 
filled  with  the  best  will  have  neither  time  nor 
inclination  for  the  literature  that  appeals  only 
to  a  liking  for  the  commonplace  and  the  sen- 
sational. It  will  be  unfortunate  if  Tenny- 
son's indictment  against  an  English  univer- 
sity become  true  of  our  American  teachers: 

Because  you  do  profess  to  teach,  and  teach  us  nothing. 
Feeding  not  the  heart. 

To  find  not  simply  the  laws  of  chemical 
and  electrical  action,  but  also  the  laws  of  the 
mind  and  the  spirit,  the  nature  of  life  and 
death,  and  the  character  of  "that  power  not 
ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness" — all 
this  should  determine  the  lines  of  reading  for 
students  outside  of  their  specialty.  Such 
reading  is  not  for  acquisition,  for  attainment, 

164 


The  Library  and  the  Thomas  Jefferson  Statue,  University 
of  Virginia 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

or  for  facts  alone;  it  is  for  inspiration  and 
ideals,  and  a  realizing  sense  of  that  passionate 
joy  derived  from  all  things  real  and  beautiful. 


THE  PIONEER  SPIRIT 

College  training  brings  with  it  responsibil- 
ity and  reward.  The  responsibility  is  that  of 
leadership — the  kind  of  leadership  which 
comes  to  the  man  of  advanced  knowledge  and 
unusual  advantages,  who  sees  the  needs  of  his 
time  and  does  not  flinch  from  the  hardest  kind 
of  sacrifice  in  view  of  those  needs.  The  re- 
ward is  not  always  apparent  to  the  world,  but 
it  is  more  than  sufficient  for  the  worker.  In- 
deed, the  American  undergraduate  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  aware  that  his  pay  is  not 
his  reward.  He  is  learning  that  the  world  is 
not  keen  to  pay  the  cost  of  new  ideas  or  to 
reward  professional  leadership  with  material 
values.  Furthermore,  his  half-paid  service 
does  not  tell  the  whole  story  of  his  sacrifice. 
His  work  is  often  lost  in  the  successes  of  some 
other  man  who  follows  him.  But  the  college- 
trained  man  who  has  weighed  well  these  needs, 
and  has  deliberately  chosen,  is  not  to  be  pitied. 

167 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  one  is  more 
to  be  envied.  He  is  under  the  impulsion  of  an 
inner  sense  of  mission.  The  college  has  given 
him  faith  in  himself  and  his  mission.  Many 
a  graduate,  going  out  from  American  halls 
of  learning,  feels  somewhat  as  Carlyle  felt 
when  he  said:  "I  have  a  book  in  me;  it  must 
come  out,"  or  as  Disraeli  intimated  in  his  an- 
swer when  he  was  hissed  down  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  "You  will  not  hear  me  now,  but 
there  will  come  a  time  when  you  will  hear  me." 
The  undergraduate,  spending  laborious 
days  upon  the  invention  which  shall  make  in- 
dustrial progress  possible  in  lands  his  eyes 
will  never  see,  is  carried  along  by  an  impulse 
not  easily  expressed.  He  realizes  the  feeling 
that  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  expressed  when 
he  said  about  his  writing  that  he  felt  like 
thanking  God  that  he  had  a  chance  to  earn  his 
bread  upon  such  joyful  terms.  He  has  delib- 
erately turned  his  back  upon  certain  temporal- 
ities in  order  to  face  the  sunrise  of  some  new 
ideal  for  social  betterment  or  national  prog- 
ress. He  has  heard  the  gods  calling  him  to 
some  far-reaching  profession  that  is  more  than 
a  position.     There  is  stirring  in  him  always 

168 


REASONS  FOR  GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

the  sense  of  message.  He  has  caught  the 
clear,  captivating  voice  of  a  unique  life-work. 
It  urges  him  on  to  the  occupation  of  his  new 
land  of  dreams.  Is  this  leader  worried  be- 
cause some  one  misunderstands  him?  Does 
he  envy  the  man  who,  following  another  ideal, 
sweeps  by  in  an  automobile  which  perhaps  his 
own  particular  genius  has  made  possible? 
The  pioneer  of  letters  who  has  known  the 
sweetness  and  light  of  literary  satisfaction,  the 
fine  frenzy  of  that  creative,  imaginative  activ- 
ity in  which  ideas  are  caught  and  crystallized 
in  words,  does  not  despair  when  his  earthly 
rewards  seem  to  linger. 

The  college,  then,  is  a  means  only  to  the 
larger  life  of  spirit  and  service.  It  exists  to. 
point  out  the  goal  the  attainment  of  which  lies 
inherent  in  the  student.  The  college  is  like 
the  tug-boat  that  pulls  the  ship  from  the  har- 
bor to  the  clear  water  of  the  free,  open  sea. 
The  curriculum,  the  play-life,  the  laboratory, 
the  patriotism  of  the  college  spirit,  the  build- 
ings, and  the  men,  are  only  torches  gleaming 
through  the  morning  shadows  of  the  student's 
coming  day. 


169 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE 
WORLD 


V 

THE   COLLEGE   MAN  AND   THE   WORLD 

HOW  crooked  can  a  modern  business  man 
be  and  still  be  straight?" 

This  question  was  propounded  at  a  college 
dinner  in  New  York  by  a  young  lawyer  who, 
in  behalf  of  the  recent  graduates  of  an  Eastern 
university,  had  been  asked  to  give  utterance  to 
some  of  the  first  impressions  of  a  young  alum- 
nus upon  his  entrance  into  the  life  of  the  world. 
The  question  was  not  asked  in  a  trifling  man- 
ner, but  it  represented  the  query  which  inevi- 
tably arises  in  the  mind  of  the  graduate  of 
ideals  and  high  desires  who  to-day  leaves  his 
alma  mater  to  plunge  into  the  confused  busi- 
ness and  professional  life  of  our  times. 

The  question  awakens  the  inquiry  as  to 
whet^r  me  colleges  of  America  are  to-day 
sending  into  the  world  trained  leaders  or  sub- 
servient followers;  whether  graduates  enter 
their  special  careers  with  a  real  message  and 
mission,    or   whether,   however   optimistically 

173 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

they  may  begin  their  work,  their  high  purposes 
are  buried  or  not  beneath  the  rush  of  practical 
and  material  affairs^ 

More  than  half  a  million  students  are  to-day 
studying  in  our  secondary  schools  and  institu- 
tions of  higher  learning,  with  a  money  expense 
to  the  nation  involving  many  millions  dollars. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  teachers  and  trained  edu- 
cators are  devoting  years  of  hard  and  faithful 
service  in  preparing  these  American  youths 
for  life.  Are  these  students,  after  gradua- 
tion, assuming  real  leadership?  Are  they  con- 
tributing vision,  judgment,  and  guidance  in 
great  national  enterprises  sufficiently  definite 
and  valuable  to  compensate  the  country  for 
the  sacrifices  in  time,  money,  and  life  that  are 
made  for  the  support  and  continuance  of  our 
educational  institutions  ? 

There  seems  to  be  a  difference  of  opinion 
concerning  this  subject  even  in  these  times  of 
vast  educational  enterprises.  A  business  man 
of  high  repute  wrote  to  me  recently  as  follows : 

I  do  not  consider  that  our  colleges  are  meeting  the  re- 
quirements of  modern  business  life.  From  your  own 
observation  you  must  know  that  the  most  conspicuously 
successful  people  in  business  were  conspicuously  poor 

174 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

at  the  start,  both  finacially  and  educationally.  Grover 
Cleveland,  who  was  not  a  college  graduate,  once  said 
that  the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions  and  the  public 
welfare  depended  upon  the  simple  business-like  arrange- 
ment of  the  affairs  of  the  Government. 

This  is  the  frequently  expressed  opinion  of 
men  of  business  and  affairs,  who  present  the 
successful  careers  of  self-made  men  as  an 
argument  against  collegiate  education.  This 
argument,  however,  fails  to  take  into  account 
that  the  same  dogged  persistence  which  has 
brought  success  to  many  of  our  present-day 
leaders  in  industrial  and  national  life  would 
have  lost  nothing  in  efficiency  by  college  train- 
ing. 

Ask  these  masters  of  the  business  world  who 
have  risen  by  their  individual  force  what  they 
most  regret  in  life.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
the  answer  will  be,  "The  lack  of  an  oppor- 
tunity for  education."  And  they  will  usually 
add:  "But  my  sons  shall  have  an  education. 
They  shall  not  be  handicapped  as  I  have 
been."  For  the  practical  proof  of  the  genu- 
ineness of  this  feeling,  one  has  simply  to  read 
over  the  names  in  the  catalogues  of  the  great 
universities  and  colleges  of  America,  where 

175 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

the  names  of  the  sons  of  virtually  all  the  great 
business  and  professional  men  will  be  found. 

While,  therefore,  we  must  take  it  for 
granted  that  Americans  generally  believe 
in  a  collegiate  education,  we  may  still  ques- 
tion whether  the  colleges  are  really  equip- 
ping for  leadership  the  young  men  whom 
they  are  sending  into  our  modern  life.  What, 
after  all,  do  the  colleges  give?  Out  of  one 
hundred  graduates  whom  I  asked  what  they 
had  gained  in  college,  twenty-one  said, 
"Broader  views  of  life,"  or  perspective.  -Long 
ago  John  Ruskin  said  that  the  greatest  thing 
any  human  being  can  do  in  the  world  is  to  see 
something,  and  then  goand  tell  what  he  has 
seen  in  a  plain  way.  \To  make  the  under- 
graduate see  something  beyond  the  common- 
place is  still  the  purpose  of  education.yThis  en- 
larged vision  is  often  the  salvation  of  the  indi- 
vidual student.  It  furnishes  the  impulse  of  a 
new  affection.  It  attaches  him  to  some  great, 
uncongenial  task.  It  gives  him  a  mission 
great  enough  and  hard  enough  to  keep  his  feet 
y  beneath  him.     It  saves  him  by  steadying  him. 


176 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

THE  ART   OF  RELAXATION 

But  no  graduate  is  equipped  for  either 
mental  or  moral  leadership  until  he  has  learned 
the  art  of  relaxation.  Both  his  health  and  his) 
efficiency  wait  upon  his  ability  to  rest,  to  relax, 
to  be  composed  in  the  midst  of  life's  affairs. 
A  real  cause  of  American  physical  breakdown 
has  been  attributed  by  a  famous  physician  "to 
those  absurd  feelings  of  hurry  and  having  no 
time,  to  that  breathlessness  and  tension,  that 
anxiety  of  feature  and  that  solicitude  of 
results,  that  lack  of  inner  harmony  and  ease, 
in  short,  by  which  with  us  the  work  is  apt  to 
be  accompanied,  and  from  which  a  European 
who  would  do  the  same  work  would,  nine  times 
out  of  ten,  be  free.  It  is  your  relaxed  and 
easy  worker,  who  is  in  no  hurry,  and  quite 
thoughtless  most  of  the  while  of  consequence, 
who  is  your  most  efficient  worker.  Tension 
and  anxiety,  present  and  future  all  mixed  up 
together  in  one  mind  at  once,  are  the  surest 
drags  upon  steady  progress  and  hindrances  to 
our  success." 

We  find  that  one  of  the  supreme  purposes 
of  education  in  ancient  Greece  was  to  prepare 

177 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

men  to  be  capable  of  profiting  by  their  hours 
of  freedom  from  labor.  In  his  writing  upon 
education,  Herbert  Spencer  gives  special 
attention  to  the  training  that  fits  citizens  for 
leisure  hours. 

The  American  college  graduate  is  quite  cer- 
tain to  receive  early  the  impression  that  effi- 
ciency is  synonymous  with  hustling ;  that  mod- 
ern life,  in  America  at  least,  as  G.  Lowes  Dick- 
inson has  said,  finds  its  chief  end  in  "accelera- 
tion." His  danger  is  frequently  in  his  inability 
to  concentrate,  to  compose  himself  for  real 
thoughtful  leadership.  Many  a  graduate 
takes  years  to  get  over  that  explosive  energy 
of  the  sophomore,  which  spends  itself  with- 
out result.  He  takes  display  of  energy  for 
real  force.  His  veins  are  filled  with  the  hot 
blood  of  youth.  He  has  not  learned  to  wait. 
He  is  inclined  to  put  more  energy  and  nervous 
force  into  things  than  they  demand.  Like  all 
youth,  he  is  inclined  to  scatter  his  energy  in 
all  directions.  He  is  therefore  in  danger 
sooner  or  later  of  breaking  down  physically  or 
mentally,  or  both,  and  in  spending  the  time 
which  should  be  utilized  in  serviceableness  in 
repairing   the   breakages    of   an    uneconomic 

178 


/ 


-it-  4'"  ■"''''■' 


Harper  Memorial  Building  and  the  Law  Building, 
University  of  Chicago 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

human  machine.  The  average  American 
graduate  rarely  needs  Emerson's  advice  for  a 
lazy  boy,  which  was,  "Set  a  dog  on  him,  send 
him  West,  do  something  to  him." 

College  training  must  give  a  man  perma- 
nent idealism.  Too  often  the  graduate  is 
inclined  to  fall  into  the  line  of  march.  He 
begins  to  worry  and  to  lose  his  attractive 
gaiety  and  buoyancy.  His  habits  of  thought 
and  study  are  soon  buried  beneath  the  myriad 
details  of  business  life  or  nervous  pleasures. 
He  becomes  anxious  about  things  that  never 
happen.  His  anxiety  about  future  happen- 
ings or  results  takes  his  mind  from  present 
efficiency.  He  becomes  tense  and  tired  and 
irritable.  The  attitude  of  composure  and 
self-assurance  which  for  a  time  he  possessed  in 
college  is  changed  to  a  fearsome,  troubled  state, 
the  end  of  which  is  the  sanatorium  or  some- 
thing even  more  baneful.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  for  a  month  at  least  I  should  like 
to  see  the  office  signs,  "Do  it  now,"  "This  is 
my  busy  day,"  "Step  quickly,"  replaced  by 
the  old  scriptural  motto,  "In  quietness  and 
confidence  shall  be  your  strength." 

How   shall   our   colleges    assist   American 
181 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

youth  to  secure  the  art  of  relaxation  and  to 
obtain  the  ability  to  relieve  the  tension  of  the 
workaday  world  by  beneficial  and  delightful 
relief  from  business  strain?  Such  gifts  will 
often  be  the  chief  assets  of  a  college  man's 
training.  Business  men,  and  professional  men, 
h  too,  frequently  reach  middle  life  with  no  inter- 
est outside  their  specialties.  When  business 
is  over,  life  is  a  blank.  There  are  no  eager 
voices  of  pleasant  pursuits  calling  them  away 
from  the  common  round  and  routine  tasks. 
It  is  too  late  to  form  habits.  The  rich 
rewards  that  education  may  give  in  leisure 
hours  are  lost,  swallowed  up  by  a  thousand 
things  that  are  merely  on  the  way  to  the 
prizes  that  count.  This  is  a  terrific  loss,  and 
for  this  loss  our  colleges  are  in  part  at  least  at 
fault. 

In  certain  institutions,  however,  we  discover 
teachers  who  realize  that  a  real  part  of  their 
vocation  consists  in  giving  to  at  least  a  few 
students  habits  of  real  and  permanent  relaxa- 
tion. 

In  a  New  England  college  recently  I  found 
a  professor  spending  two  afternoons  a  week  in 
cross-country  walks  with  students  to  whom  he 

182 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

was  teaching  at  an  impressionable  age  habits 
that  could  be  continued  after  college  days. 
These  walks  occurred  on  Sunday  and  Thurs- 
day afternoons.  With  rigid  persistence  he 
had  followed  the  plan  of  walking  with  his  stu- 
dents for  six  or  eight  months,  a  sufficient  time 
in  which  to  form  habits.  He  explained  his 
object  by  saying  that  during  his  own  college 
career  he  had  engaged  in  certain  forms  of  ath- 
letics which  he  was  unable  to  pursue  after 
graduation.  While  his  college  physical  train- 
ing had  benefited  him  physically,  he  neverthe- 
less found  himself  quite  without  habits  of  bod- 
ily relaxation.  He  was  deprived  of  appara- 
tus and  the  opportunity  for  many  out-of-door 
games,  but  had  found  an  immense  value  in 
walking.  In  passing  on  to  these  college  boys 
this  inclination  for  out-of-door  relaxation,  he 
was  perhaps  contributing  his  chief  influence  as 
a  teacher. 

Why  should  not  habits  of  this  kind  be  defi- 
nitely organized  and  carried  out  by  the  physi- 
cal departments  of  our  colleges?  The  oppor- 
tunity to  study  trees,  plants,  and  animals,  and 
to  become  watchful  for  a  hundred  varying 
phases    of   nature,    would    furnish   no    small 

183 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

opportunity  for  projecting  the  influence  of  col- 
lege into  later  life. 

These  tendencies  toward  relaxation  take 
different  forms  according  to  individual  tastes. 
One  graduate  of  my  acquaintance  finds  outlet 
for  his  nervous  energy  in  a  fish-hatchery.  To 
be  sure,  he  bores  his  friends  by  talking  fish  at 
every  conceivable  opportunity,  and  people  fre- 
quently get  the  impression  that  his  mind  has  a 
piscatorial  rather  than  financial  trend,  as  he 
loses  no  opportunity  to  dilate  upon  his  latest 
adventure  in  trout;  and  yet  his  physician  was 
doubtless  right  in  saying  that  this  man,  the 
head  of  one  of  the  largest  financial  institutions 
in  America,  owes  his  life  as  well  as  his  success 
to  this  special  form  of  relaxation. 

A  graduate  of  one  of  our  large  Western 
technical  schools  who  is  at  the  head  of  a  big 
steel  foundry  has  a  private  book-bindery, 
where  with  two  or  three  of  his  friends  the  life  of 
the  world  is  lost  evening  after  evening  in 
the  quiet  and  delightful  air  of  books  and  book- 
making.  The  best  treatises  upon  book-bind- 
ing line  the  walls.  Old  and  rare  editions  of 
the  most  famous  masters  are  carefully  shel- 
tered in  cases  of  glass.     One  end  of  the  room 

184 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

is  filled  with  his  printing  and  binding-machines. 
He  showed  me  a  beautifully  bound  vol- 
ume which  he  himself  had  printed  and  bound. 
As  he  lovingly  fingered  the  soft  leather,  read- 
ing to  me  his  favorite  passages  from  this  mas- 
terpiece, I  discerned  in  him  a  different  man 
from  the  one  I  had  often  seen  sitting  in  his 
grimy  office  discussing  contracts  for  steel  rails 
for  China  and  bridge  girders  for  South  Amer- 
ica. [A  deeper,  finer  man  had  been  discovered 
in  the  hours  of  recreation.)  When  asked  how 
he  happened  to  become  interested  in  a  matter 
so  antipodal  to  his  life-work,  I  found  that  the 
tendency  started  in  college  days,  when  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  browse  among  the  books 
in  the  old  college  library  under  the  faithful 
and  regular  guidance  of  a  professor  who  once 
every  week  took  his  students  to  the  library 
with  the  express  purpose  of  inculcating  a  love 
for  old  and  beautifully  bound  books. 

The  college,  moreover,  should  start  the 
graduate  interest  in  philanthropic  and  serious 
enterprises  which  in  themselves  furnish  suit- 
able as  well  as  pleasing  relaxation  to  hundreds 
of  American  university  men.  Letters  re- 
ceived   from    scores     of    recent    graduates, 

185 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

many  of  whom  are  taking  a  large  share  in 
moral,  social,  and  philanthropic  endeavors, 
state  that  the  beginnings  of  their  interest 
dated  with  their  experience  in  the  Christian 
associations,  settlement  houses,  boys'  clubs, 
and  charitable  organizations  of  college  days. 
One  man  of  large  philanthropic  interest  re- 
ceived his  first  view  of  a  field  of  opportunity 
and  privilege  by  hearing  a  lecturer  on  a  social 
betterment  tell  of  finding  a  homeless  boy  hov- 
ering over  the  grating  of  a  newspaper  build- 
ing on  a  winter  night.  The  story  touched  a 
chord  deep  in  the  hearer,  who  saw  this  vision 
of  a  world  until  then  unknown  to  him — a 
world  of  suffering  and  hunger  and  cold;  and 
when  in  later  life  it  was  made  possible,  he  de- 
voted his  influence  and  his  f  ortune  to  the  erec- 
tion of  a  home  for  friendless  boys. 

What  is  the  college  accomplishing  toward 
the  solution  of  that  vital  subject,  the  question 
of  the  immigrant?  The  possibilities  of  deal- 
ing with  such  far-reaching  international  prob- 
lems is  indicated  by  the  influence  of  a  college 
debate  upon  the  subject,  "What  shall  we  do 
with  the  immigrant?"  Through  his  reading 
and  investigation  of  the  subject,  a  certain  stu- 

186 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

dent  who  engaged  in  this  debate  received  his 
first  impetus  toward  what  has  proved  to  be 
one  of  the  main  contributions  of  his  life  to  the 
nation  by  the  establishment  of  Italian  colonies 
that  are  probably  as  effective  as  any  plans 
which  are  being  suggested  or  utilized  for  the 
betterment  of  our  foreign  population. 

MENTAL   RESOURCEFULNESS 

According  to  President  John  G.  Hibben  of 
Princeton,  graduates  on  the  average  earn  only 
six  dollars  per  week  at  the  start.  He  justifies 
this  low  earning  power  by  saying,  "It  is  our 
endeavor  to  create  a  high  potential  of  mental 
possibility  rather  than  actual  attainment." 

We  are  inclined  to  consider  efficiency  only 
as  expressed  along  social,  economic,  industrial, 
or  mechanical  lines.  It  is  not  strange  in  a 
period  when  financial  standing  bulks  large  in 
the  minds  of  a  comparatively  new  people 
that  the  recognition  of  the  learned  classes 
should  be  less  noticeable  than  formerly.  Yet 
reactive  tendencies  from  strictly  utilitarian 
education  are  evident.  Individual  and  ideal 
aims  of  education  are  beginning  to  emerge. 

187 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

above  the  commercial  and  mechanical  aims. 
Already  the  salaries  of  college  presidents  and 
college  teachers  are  increased,  offering  addi- 
tional incentive  for  men  of  brains  and  schol- 
arly achievement.  Masters  of  industry  who 
have  been  slaving  for  industrial  and  social 
progress  are  now  becoming  eager  to  push  their 
accomplishments  onward  to  mental  and  spirit- 
ual satisfactions.  How  otherwise  can  we  ex- 
plain such  establishments  as  the  Carnegie 
Foundation,  the  millions  of  Mr.  Morgan  for 
art,  the  vast  sums  contributed  to  religion  and 
education  in  this  and  other  lands?  The  ethi- 
cal and  social  ideals  of  to-day  are  attaching 
thousands  of  our  best  youth  to  far-reaching 
endeavor.  There  is  a  new  quest  for  that  phi- 
losophy of  life  which,  as  Novalis  stated  it, 
could  indeed  bake  no  bread,  but  would  give  us 
God,  freedom,  and  immortality.  These  are 
the  signs  of  a  new  age  of  mental  productivity 
• — an  age  in  which  scholarship  and  learning 
will  have  a  value  for  themselves;  when  people 
will  appreciate  that  it  is  not  merely  the  book 
one  studies,  but  how  he  studies  it  that  counts; 
that  if  we  can  produce  a  man  of  scholarly, 
thoughtful  ability,  we  are  sending  into  the 

188 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

world  a  person  who  will  be  proficient  along 
any  line  in  which  he  may  engage. 

In  a  Harvard  address  a  few  years  ago,  it 
was  remarked  by  Mr.  Owen  Wister  that 
America  possessed  only  three  men  of  unques- 
tioned preeminence  to  whom  students  could 
turn  for  acadernic  tuition  in  their  respective 
lines.  I  believe  it  was  Edmund  Gosse  who 
said  that  America  had  not  produced  a  single 
poet  deserving  to  rank  with  the  unquestioned 
masters  of  English  poetry.  While  these 
statements  may  be  questioned,  one  realizes  the 
general  truth  behind  them  when  we  contrast 
the  marvelous  and  expensive  architectural 
equipment  of  American  universities  with  the 
paucity  of  great  men  and  teachers. 

The  trend  of  the  times,  however,  is  slowly 
but  certainly  toward  a  new  individualism. 
Attention  is  being  focused  more  and  more 
upon  the  values  of  life  rather  than  upon  the 
volume  of  life.  The  college  graduate  may 
not  be  able  to  deliver  an  oration  in  Hebrew 
in  the  morning  and  in  Latin  in  the  afternoon, 
but  he  is  able  to  think  through  and  around  his 
problem,  and  this  is  mental  resourcefulness, 
truly  a  chief  aim  of  collegiate  education  and 

189 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

one  of  the  first  necessities  for  success.     Emer- 
son's prophecy  may  be  realized  in  our  day: 

Perhaps  the  time  has  already  come,  when  the  slug- 
gard intellect  of  this  continent  will  look  from  under  its 
iron  lids  and  fill  the  postponed  expectation  of  the  world 
with  something  better  than  the  exertion  of  mechanical 
skill.  Our  day  of  dependence,  our  long  apprenticeship 
to  the  learning  of  other  lands,  draws  to  a  close.  The 
millions  that  around  us  are  rushing  into  life  cannot  al- 
ways be  fed  on  the  sere  remains  of  frozen  harvests. 
Who  can  doubt  that  poetry  will  revive  and  lead  in  a  new 
age,  as  the  star  in  the  constellation  Harp,  which  now 
flames  in  our  zenith,  astronomers  announce  shall  one  day 
be  the  pole  star  for  a  thousand  years. 

The  challenge  is  to  our  undergraduates. 
And  it  will  be  accepted.  The  colleges  will 
teach  men  to  think,  to  be  mentally  alert  and 
resourceful,  and  then  the  man  will  count  in  the 
leadership  of  modern  life,  in  the  sense  in- 
tended by  Dr.  Simeon  who,  upon  seeing  a 
trained  graduate  approach,  exclaimed,  "There 
comes  three  hundred  men." 

In  order  to  accomplish  this,  however,  the 
college  must  make  it  a  point  to  teach  princi- 
ples rather  than  dogmatic  methods.  Too 
often  our  systems  of  learning  are  too  bookish. 

190 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

The  boy  is  inclined  to  get  the  impression  that 
there  is  only  one  way  to  do  a  thing,  and  that 
is  the  way  he  has  learned  from  his  professor 
or  his  text-book.  A  business  man  told  me 
that  he  was  recently  obliged  to  dismiss  one  of 
his  college  graduates  because  the  young  man 
could  not  see  or  think  of  but  one  way  to  work 
out  a  mechanical  proposition.  His  training 
had  circumscribed  him,  cramped,  limited,  and 
enslaved  him  instead  of  freeing  him.  He  was 
unable  to  move  about  easily  in  his  sphere  of 
chosen  activity.  He  had  gained  a  prejudice 
rather  than  a  principle.  He  still  lived  in  a 
classroom,  though  out  in  the  world.  His  prog- 
ress was  water-logged  in  academic  conserva- 
tism. 

LIFE-WORK  PROPAGANDA 

It  is,  moreover,  time  for  constructive  action 
on  the  part  of  both  college  and  alumni  in  the 
matter  of  directing  students  to  their  proper 
calling.  While  it  is  impossible  for  our  col- 
leges to  make  great  men  out  of  indifferent 
raw  material,  it  is  possible  to  assist  undergrad- 
uates to  discover  their  inherent  bent  or  capac- 
ity.    Until  the  student  has  made  such  a  dis- 

191 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

covery,  the  elective  system  which  is  now  gen- 
eral in  our  American  institutions  is  something 
of  a  farce.  The  lazy  student,  undecided  in 
his  vocation,  uses  it  as  a  barricade  through 
which  he  wriggles  and  twists  to  his  degree,  or 
at  best  is  tempted  in  a  dozen  various  direc- 
tions, selecting  disconnected  subjects,  in  no 
one  of  which  he  finds  his  chief  aptitude.  The 
elective  system  to  such  a  student  is  an  art-gal- 
lery without  a  key,  a  catalogue  without  the 
pictures.  He  does  not  know  what  he  wishes 
to  see. 
?  This  undergraduate  ability  or  inclination  is 
not  easily  grasped  either  by  himself  or  by 
others.  It  requires  study  and  discriminating 
sympathy,  to  extricate  a  main  desire  from 
many  incidental  likings.  Frequently  the  de- 
sire itself  must  be  virtually  created.  It  is  a 
common  remark  among  American  undergrad- 
uates, "I  wish  I  knew  what  I  was  fitted  for." 
The  college  is  under  deep  obligation  to  serve 
the  nation  not  merely  by  presenting  a  great 
number  of  excellent  subjects,  which,  if  prop- 
erly selected,  will  land  the  young  man  in 
positions  of  leadership  and  usefulness;  but  it 
may  and  must  go  beyond  this  negative  educa- 

192 


The  Arch  between  the  Dormitory  Quadrangle  and  the 
Triangle,  University  of  Pennsylvania 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

tion,  and  assist  the  student  actually  to  form 
his  life  purpose. 

American  institutions  of  learning  are  at 
present  neglecting  an  opportunity  par  excel- 
lence for  presenting  different  phases  of  life- 
work  to  undergraduates,  especially  empha- 
sizing the  relation  of  this  life-work  to  the  great 
branches  of  leadership  and  modern  en- 
terprise. There  are  hundreds  of  students 
being  graduated  from  our  institutions  to- 
day who  have  not  decided  what  they 
are  to  do  in  after  life.  Even  if  we  assume 
that  these  men  are  prepared  in  an  all-round 
way  for  life,  it  must  be  realized  that  they  are 
severely  handicapped  by  the  necessity  of  try- 
ing different  lines  of  work  for  years  after 
graduation  before  fixing  upon  their  perma- 
nent vocation.  They  not  only  miss  the  tre- 
mendous advantage  of  enthusiasm  and  im- 
pulse of  the  young,  but  they  are  also  in  danger 
of  drifting  rather  than  of  moving  forward 
with  positive  and  aggressive  activity. 

A  NEW  COLLEGE  OFFICER  NEEDED 

I  see  no  possibility  of  bringing  undergradu- 
ates to  a  decision  of  their  proper  life-work  with- 

195 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

out  the  assistance  of  a  new  office  in  our  educa- 
tional institutions.  A  man  is  needed  who  can 
treat  with  students  with  real  human  interest, 
as  well  as  with  teaching  intelligence.  He 
should  not  be  the  college  pastor,  who  is  looked 
upon  as  a  professional  religionist,  and  there- 
fore shunned  by  many  students  who  need  him 
most,  but  one  definitely  and  actively  responsible 
for  the  development  of  leadership.  He 
should  be  a  close  student  of  college  affairs, 
sympathetic  with  students,  human,  high- 
minded,  natural,  and  keenly  alive  to  humor 
and  social  interests.  In  some  institutions  this 
man  might  hold  the  leadership  in  philanthropic, 
religious,  and  social-service  interests.  It 
might  be  his  privilege  to  arrange  lectures  by 
leading  men  of  the  country  who  were  filled 
with  zeal  for  their  callings.  The  man  who 
could  make  possible  the  endowment  of  such  a 
chair  in  a  great  university  would  be  doing  a 
great  work  for  his  country. 

LEARNING  AND  INVESTIGATION 

But  while  the  American  undergraduate  may 
consistently  look  to  the  college  to  furnish  him 
with  ideals  and  with  the  methods  of  making 

196 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

these  ideals  effective,  the  world  looks  to  the 
college  for  definite  and  advanced  information. 
The  college,  with  its  accumulated  stores  of  in- 
tellect, its  apparatus,  and  its  unusual  means 
for  observation,  owes  the  world  a  debt  that 
none  but  it  can  pay.  And  this  is  the  gift 
which  the  college  has  given,  and  is  still  giving, 
to  the  world  so  quietly,  so  unobtrusively,  that 
the  world  scarcely  dreams  of  the  source  of  its 
gain.  Let  one  think  of  the  myriad  signs  of 
modern  progress  by  which  society  is  being  con- 
stantly carried  forward.  Behind  the  scenes 
you  will  find  some  quiet,  hidden  worker  in  a 
laboratory  or  library,  an  unpractical  man  per- 
haps, but  one  through  whom  a  new  realm  of 
possibilities  in  science  or  industry  or  letters 
have  been  revealed. 

What  is  the  world's  interest  in  these  men — 
men  who  are  so  generally  underpaid  that 
much  of  their  best  work  is  made  impossible  by 
the  necessary  outside  labors  to  support  their 
families,  who,  beyond  their  own  personal  satis- 
faction, have  as  little  recognition  as  perhaps 
any  workers  of  modern  society?  When  the 
world  demands  expert  knowledge  in  industry, 
science,  literature,  and  art,  the  college  may 

197 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

well  reply,  "When  are  you  going  to  show  your 
gratitude  for  the  self-sacrifice  and  far-reach- 
ing labors  of  thousands  of  devoted  men  whose 
work  is  both  a  challenge  and  an  example  to  the 
world  to-day?" 

And  this  example  of  the  man  who  learns  to 
devote  himself  to  one  thing  is  not  lost  upon  the 
undergraduate,  to  whom  example  is  ever 
stronger  than  precept.  Indeed,  it  is  this  tend- 
ency to  learn  how  to  do  one  thing  well  that  is 
bringing  the  colleges  into  the  attention  of  the 
modern  world.  The  secret  of  genius  is  to  be 
able  to  seize  upon  some  concrete,  near-at- 
hand  piece  of  work,  to  see  it  with  unobstructed 
and  steady  vision,  and  then,  out  of  the  rich 
treasure  of  knowing  how  to  do  one  thing  thor- 
oughly, to  draw  by  iesight  and  expression  the 
general  principle.       A4 

For,  after  all,  the  contribution  of  the  col- 
lege to  the  world  is  often  one  which  cannot  be 
fully  analysed.  It  is  not  discovered  in  a  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  a  curriculum  or  in  the 
statistics  of  athletics  any  more  than  a  foreign 
country  is  discovered  in  a  gtii5e-book  or  in  a 
hasty  recital  of  its  industries^ %  There  is  no 
master  word  to  express  what  a  college  career 

198 


COLLEGE  MAN  AND  THE  WORLD 

may  mean  or  should  mean  to  American  youth 
who  in  years  of  high  impression  experience 
with  a  multitude  of  their  fellows. 

Days  that  flew  swiftly  like  the  band 
That  in  the  Grecian  games  had  strife, 

And  passed  from  eager  hand  to  hand 
The  onward-dancing  torch  of  life. 

After  we  have  said  much  concerning  the  life 
and  the  work  of  the  American  undergraduate, 
there  is  still  a  valuable  thing  which  the  college 
should  impart  to  him,  and  through  which  he 
should  become  enabled  to  present  with  greater 
charm  and  with  greater  force  the  message 
which  is  in  his  soul.  This  valuable  thing,  at 
once  both  idealism  and  incentive,  is  the  under- 
graduate's individual  message  to  the  world. 
It  may  be  composed  of  knowledge,  the  ability 
to  think,  the  faculty  of  relaxation,  and  the 
power  to  do  faithfully  and  successfully  some 
given  task.  These  things,  however,  are  all 
dependent  upon  the  spirit  of  the  actor,  upon 
his  vision,  his  determination,  his  ambitious  and 
unflagging  attempts.  fThe  true  modern 
university  contributes  to  the  world  a  great- 
minded  and  a  great-hearted  man,  to  whom  col- 

199 

1 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

lege  life  has  been  a  soul's  birth  as  well  as  a 
mind's  awakening.  It  gives  to  its  youth  that 
peculiar  but  indispensable  thing  which  burned 
in  the  heart  of  the  young  art-student  who 
stood  before  the  masterpiece  and  said,  "I,  too, 
am  a  painter." 


END 


200 


INDEX 


INDEX 
A 

Action  the  Gospel  of  the  Undergraduate   130 

Agricultural   Colleges,    Attendance   at     56 

Alden,   Henry  M 40 

Alien  Influences  in  College  Life  101 

American    Undergraduate   Life 8 

Amherst  College  honor  system    109 

Amherst  College,  value  of  fraternity  property 117 

Amherst  College,  plan  proposed  to  abolish  the  B.  S.  degree.  .52 

Analysis  of  attitude  of  the  Undergraduate 6 

Anecdotes,  humorous   19-20 

Anecdotes  of  the  working  of  college  honor  systems 110-111 

Appleton  Chapel  16 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted  4,  84 

Athletics  fifty  years  ago  38 

Athletics  in  colleges    31 

Athletics  over-emphasized  in  American  colleges   33 

Attendance  of  students  at  state  and  representative  univer- 
sities     56 

B 

Bacchic  element  among  undergraduates  26 

Barrie,  James 135 

Base-ball  game,  an  exhibition  of  honor   146 

Bennett,  Arnold   105 

Benson,  A.  C 74 

Bible  classes,  attendance   25 

Bible  study,  great  organizations  for 125 

208 


INDEX 

Bible  teaching,  inadequacy  of  85 

Billings,   Josh,   quoted    78 

Bismarck,  quoted   154 

Book-binding  as  a  relaxation  184 

Book-life  in  college   158 

Books  and  the  undergraduate    159 

Books,  influence  of   164 

Boston  University 139 

Branford,  Conn 159 

Bryce,  James,  quoted   72 

Bushnell,  Horace 40 

c 

Cambridge,  old  life  at   103 

Campus    and   schoolroom    98 

Carnegie  Foundation 143,  188 

Carlyle,  Thomas  4,  89,  169 

Chesterton,   Gilbert   K 122 

Chief  end  of  an  American  college  58-62 

Choosing  a  college   140 

Church  history,  inadequately  taught   85 

Church  membership   25 

Classroom  presentation  of  the  professor    77 

Clay,    Henry    144 

College,  a  means  to  the  larger  life 169 

College  and  the  immigrant  question   186 

College  clubs  responsible  for  large  part  of  undergraduate 

life 117 

College,   constructive   action   of    191 

College  develops  individual  initiative    147 

College  fraternities,  dangers  of  120 

College   graduates   in  the  missionary   field    26 

College  graduates  of  fifty  years  ago  versus  those  of  to-day  71 

College  journalism 154 

College  men  and  the  world    173 

College  men  as  leaders  of  reform  movements   29 

204 


INDEX 

College  men  should  be  makers  of  public  sentiment 60 

College  slang   15 

College  spirit  39 

College  teachers,  what  they  lack 75 

College  traditions   102 

College  work  and  college  relaxation   93 

College  Y.  M.  C.  A 25 

Colleges  and  the  requirement  of  modern  business  life 174 

Colleges,   dates   of   founding 153 

Colorado  School  of  Mines    139 

Columbia  University   31 

Columbia   University,   financial   statistics    57 

Columbia  University,  report  of  plan  to  establish  the  uni- 
versity system   66 

Columbia  University,  value  of  fraternity  property 117 

Commercialism  in  American  universities   58 

Cornell   University,   financial   statistics    57 

Cosmopolitan  life  at  college 100 

Courses  of  study,  tendency  towards  the  practical   51 

Criticisms  of  American  colleges   3 

D 

Dangers  of  modern  college  fraternities   120 

Degrees,  radical  plan  proposed  at  Amherst  college 52 

Dickinson,  L.  Lowes   178 

Discipline  emphasized  by   athletics    39 

Disraeli,  quoted  168 

Dodge,  Cleveland  H 125 

Dodge,  W.  Earl   .' 125 

Drummond,  Henry,  quoted  16 

Dyke,    Henry  van    24 

E 

East  Indian  student's  description  of  his  daily  routine 101 

Eastern  universities,  attendance  at 56 

Editors  of  The  Bake  suspended 105 

205 


INDEX 

Education  the  secret  of  American  success  ...» 153 

Education  to  meet  popular  demands    65 

Elective  studies 63 

Eliot,  President  of  Yale   154 

Emerson,  Ralph  W.   40,  46,  181,  190 

English  literature,   inadequately  taught    ,..85 

Enrollment  in   agricultural   and  mechanical   colleges,   56; 
in  Johns  Hopkins  University   56 

F 

Faculties'   attitude  towards   fraternities    118 

Faunce,  President  of  Brown  University  118 

Fish-hatching  as  a  relaxation   184 

Financial    statistics    of   various    colleges    57 

Foot-ball  in  colleges   37 

Foot-ball,  instance  at  a  Harvard- Yale  game   131 

Foreign  students  in  American  colleges   100 

Forms   of  relaxation    183 

Fraternities,  membership  116 

Fraternity  alumni,  cooperation  of,  sought  119 

Fraternity  houses  117 

Fraternity  houses,  problems  connected  with  118 

Fraternity  life  in   college    116 

G 

Garfield,  James  H 144 

German  universities,  research  work  in 70 

Gilman,  Daniel  Coit,  President  Johns  Hopkins   73 

Gosse,    Edmund    189 

Government  by  Undergraduates 150 

Graduate  testimony  concerning  college 138 

Grant,   Gen.   U.  S 147 

Greek  letter  societies    116 

Growth  of   practical   education    55 

H 

Hadley,  Arthur  Twining,  President  of  Yale  146 

206 


INDEX 

Harkness,  Albert   75 

Harper,  Dr.  William  R 55 

Harvard  University,  date  founded  153 

Harvard  faculty  authorized  to  inflict  corporal  punishment  149 

Harvard   University,  financial  statistics    57 

"Hasty  Pudding,  The,"  of  Harvard   117 

Heine,   Heinrich    18 

Hibben,  John  G 187 

History,  two  ways  of  teaching  79 

Honor   and   square  dealing 145 

Honor  of  the  college  men  108-11.2 

Honor  systems   13,  109 

Hopkins,  Mark   144 

Humor  of  the  collegian 105-107 

Humor,  sense  of  in  undergraduate   17 

Humorous  anecdotes 19-20 

I 

Ideals   joined   to   action    145 

Immigrant    question,    the    186 

Individual  character,  the  need  of   62 

Individual   training    146 

Influence  of  professors  with  students  87 

Influences   on  student  life    99 

Irving,  Washington   27 

J 

Johns  Hopkins  University 139 

Johns    Hopkins    University,   financial   statistics    57 

Johnson,    Owen    4 

K 

Kipling,  Rudyard    93,  131,  163 

L 

Lawlessness  in  college   108 

207 


INDEX 

Learning  and  investigation 196 

Learning  to  think    152 

Lectures,  making  interesting   78 

Literature,  new  realism  in   159 

Locke,  John   153 

Longfellow,  Henry  W 40 

Lowell,  Abbott  Lawrence,  President  of  Harvard   31 

Lowell,   James    Russell    46 

Loyalty  to  leadership    150 

M 

McLean,  President  of  Princeton  144 

McKinley,   William    147 

Mabie,  Dr.  Hamilton  Wright   152 

"Mask  and  Wig,  The,"  of  University  of  Pennsylvania 117 

Mechanical  colleges,  enrollment  in   56 

Membership  of  Greek  letter  societies   116 

Mental  resourcefulness   187 

Micah,  quoted 127 

Mission  contributions    25 

Mission  of  the  university  system   66 

Missions,  origin  of  the  student  volunteer  movement 126 

Missionaries,  college  graudates  as   26 

Monroe,  James    147 

Mount  Hermon,  Mass.,  conference  resulting  in  organization 
of  The  Student  Volunteer  Movement  for  Foreign 
Missions  126 


N 

Naturalness  of  the  undergraduate  14-17 

Need  of  leaders   in  the  world    59 

New    college    officer    needed    195 

Northrup,   Cyrus,   ex-president   of   University   of   Minne- 
sota   76,  1 21 

208 


INDEX 
O 

Oxford  University,  opened  to  American  students  by  Cecil 
Rhodes   70 

P 

Palmer,  Professor  George  H 152 

Parallel  courses,  first  conceded  69 

Parental  sacrifices    8 

Paulding,  James  £ 27 

Personality  of  great  teachers    73 

Philadelphia,  U.  of  P.  settlement  house   128 

Pierpont,  James 159 

Pioneer  spirit 167 

Practical  courses  of  study  the  tendency    51 

Practical  education,   growth   of    55 

Pranks  of  college  undergraduates   106 

Predominant  traits  of  college  man   11 

Presidents  who  were  college  men   147 

Princeton  University,  date  founded  153 

Princeton   University,   financial   statistics    57 

Princeton   honor   system    109 

Princeton  inception  of  World's  Student  Christian  Federa- 
tion  125 

Princeton-Yale  foot-ball  anecdote  45 

Professor   in   the   lecture   room    77 

Provincialism  as  a  result  of  college  traditions 103 

Puritan  influence  on  American  college  life   149 

R 

Reasons  for  going  to  college 135-169 

Reform  movements,  led  by  college   men    29 

Relaxation,    the    art    of    177 

Religion  and  the  college  man 23-26 

Research  work  in  German  universities  70 

Responsibilities   of   college   fraternities    119 

209 


INDEX 

Rhetoric  versus   ideas    13 

Rhodes,   Cecil    70 

Rossetti,  D.  G ...161 

Rules  of  a  New  England  athletic  leader 14 

Ruskin,  John  176 

s 

Settlement  house  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 128 

"Silence"  insubordination  at  West  Point .94 

Slang  in  college    15 

Slosson,  Professor  Elwin  E 32,  57 

Social  organizations  in  colleges    112 

Social  service,  promotion  of 128 

Society  life   among  undergraduates    112 

Soldiers'  Field,  Cambridge,  memorial  shaft   45 

Specialistic  training  63 

Spencer,    Herbert     178 

Spirit  of  college  play  life   41 

Stanford  University,  financial  statistics   57 

State  institutions,  growth  of  57 

State  universities,  attendance  at   56 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis 157,  160,  168 

Student  individualism   151 

Student,  the  "for  popular"  reasons  class    99 

Student  Volunteer  Movement  of  Foreign  Missions,  origin 

of   126 

Students,  and  their  relationship  to  teachers  74 

Students'  passion  for   reality    12 

Studies,  choice   of 64 

Studies,   elective    63 

Systems  of  learning  too  bookish 190 

T 

Table-talk  in  Columbia  commons 101 

Taft,  William   H 29 

Teachers,  for  undergraduates,  how  to  train  85 

210 


INDEX 

Teachers,  need  of 73 

Teachers'   relationship   to   students    74 

Teaching  a  calling,  not  a  means  of  livelihood 88 

Technical  institutions,  growth  of 55 

Tennyson,  quoted    76,  164 

Thackeray,   W.   M.,   quoted    160 

Town    versus    gown    5 

Training  of  the  Individual   146 

U 

Undergraduate  life  of  a  century  ago 148 

Undergraduate  life,  two  divisions  of 93 

Undergraduate,   perversity  of    4-11 

Undergraduate  philosophy,  three  stages  of   126 

Undergraduate — his  naturalness  14-17 

Undergraduate,  his  passion  for  reality 11-14 

Undergraduate,  his  sense  of  humor 17-20 

Undergraduate   life,   influences   on    99 

Undergraduates  and  the  temperance  question   27 

Undergraduates   as  readers 161 

Undergraduates,   book-life  of    158 

Undergraduates,  gaiety  of   105 

.Undergraduate's    philosophy    of   life    122 

Undergraduates*  philosophy  of  serviceableness 130 

Undergraduates,  play  life  of  29 

Uninteresting  lectures    78 

University  of  California,  Chinese  students  at  101 

University  of  California,  financial  statistics  57 

University  of  Chicago,  financial  statistics    57 

University    of   Georgia 139 

University  of  Illinois,  financial  statistics   57 

University  of  Iowa,  faculty  discussion 86 

University  of  Louisiana   139 

University  of  Michigan,  chapter  houses  117 

University   of   Michigan,   financial   statistics    57 

University  of  Minnesota,  anecdote  of  ex-President  Northrup.76 

211 


INDEX 

University   of   Minnesota,   financial   statistics    57 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  settlement  house  in  Philadelphia  128 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  financial  statistics    57 

University  of  Virginia  honor  system   109 

University  of  Wisconsin,  financial  statistics    57 

University  system,  its  mission   66 

v 

Value,  Prof.  Washington,  anecdote  of    15 

Vanderbilt   University    139 

Vocational    versus    classical    education 55 

w 

Walking  as  a  relaxation 183 

Ward,   Artemus 31 

Washington  and  Lee  University  Mission  students 26 

Wesleyan    University 146 

West  Point,  an  incident  at  94 

William  and  Mary  College,  date  founded 153 

Williams  College  146 

Wilson,  Woodrow  32,  77,  121 

Wishard,  Luther  D 125 

Wister,    Owen 189 

Wright,  Dean  Henry  P 115 

World's  Student  Christian  Federation,  organization  of 125 

Y 

Yale  anecdote 12 

Yale  Mission  in  China    ,...26 

Yale  University,  date  founded 153 

Yale,  early  foundation  of 159 

Yale  University,  financial  statistics   57 


312 


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